Soul to Soul
by Cassandra Lunar
Summary: Spike leaves Sunnydale for the DADA job. By doing so, he indirectly reveals many secrets. It becomes clear Voldemort’s plans include a half-blooded Dark wizard. Other, older evils are coming back, when comatose people keep turning up in Californian park
1. Boring Legal Stuff

**Title:** Destined for Good  
**Author:** Cassandra Lunar  
**Disclaimer:** This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. In addition to the characters based on JK Rowling's inventions; this story uses the characters, situations and places invented by Joss Whedon and company. BtVS is not mine, no money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.  
**Claimer: **I own (pretty much everything that isn't canon in the story) the additional characters, races and schools (basically everything that isn't from canon or borrowed from anyone else in this story'.  
**Chapters:** Yes.  
**Spoilers:** Everything but BtVS seasons six and seven, or AtS seasons three and four.  
**Rating:** Mostly PG-13, sometimes R.  
**Pairings:** Mainly B/S and D/Hr. Mentions of the canon season five ships throughout.  
**Warnings: **If you're not comfortable with homosexuality, leave. Not only are Willow and Tara prominently featured throughout the story, there will be other same sex couples.  
**Summary:** It's a crossover between Harry Potter and Buffy the Vampire Slayer and for both fandoms it is heavily AU, as it's set in season five for Buffy and fifth year for Harry. It will most likely have two or three parts. This is the first part: Bridges between the Worlds. By accident, McGonagall comes across Spike's old school records and sends him a job offer. Spike accepts the position and leaves without actually telling anyone where he's going. And in doing so, many secrets can be unearthed. Slowly, but steadily the Scooby Gang becomes aware of their past and their likely future. It all begins with Giles agreeing to break several Concealment Laws and tell his charges of the Wizarding World. Then slowly, it becomes clear that Lord Voldemort's plans seem to include another half-blooded Dark wizard. Other, older evils are coming back to haunt the present, as well. In the most literal sense, as evidenced when comatose people keep turning up in Californian parks.  
**Legend:   
**--- change of p.o.v.;   
~~~ scene change;  
*** end of chapter;  
"dialogue";  
'thoughts';  
*čarm*;  
'''mindspeak'''.

**Author's**** Notes:   
+ This is (besides a HP/BtVS crossover) my version of season 5 as well as book 5. This is an AU story: it doesn't follow season five or book five; some things do happen, others do not.  
+ Most Magical Sentients (Atlanteani, Maresear, Katzen, Nymphén, Veela) live only half in our reality. Think of it as a controlled STSP situation; it's the same reality, and the same place, but they're half a dimension away. You can cross the thin 'curtains', if you know how to. They've also colonized various planets and moons in our solar system.   
+ Even though timeline-wise chapter one's set in the beginning of the summer between seasons four and five; certain things from season five have already happened and Adam was defeated somewhere in March. In the months between March and Juli events from season five will have taken place.   
+ I read somewhere that Hermione and Draco don't believe in Slayers, and I'm borrowing that idea. If it's yours and you're not okay with that, tell me.  
+ In this story, Hogwarts has about a thousand students. That's far too many for only one teacher per subject because there are over thirty classes, not counting clusters. That means most subjects have several teachers.  
**Questions:** Can be mailed to cassandra_lunar@hotmail.com.  
**Thanks to: **My family for listening to my pointless rambling, and Spela, who bèta'd it.  
**Other things I want to say: **Yes, this is/was Soul to Soul. It was removed because I only put up a notice (I kinda freaked after finishing OotP). Actually, that suits me just fine. Yes, this was put up under the pseudonym Nyssa. That was me, and a brief spell of thinking it was necessary. It's back where it belongs now. Please do not report anything untrue to the ff.net authorities, kay? Cass Lunar.**


	2. Old Secrets Revealed

Destined for Good  
Part one: Bridges between the Worlds  
Chapter one: Old Secrets are Revealed 

  
**_=Sunnydale: the Magic Box July first=_**

Spike was sitting at the Research Table at the Magic Box, flipping through a book about very boring and very ugly demons. All the Scoobies had been called together to look up a new demon. Even though Spike had protested, and had tried to get out of book-duty, he had been forced to sit down by the Wiccans and a chair that moved on its own.   
Willow and Tara claimed to have seen a demon, and they were clearly very disturbed about it. They had both come running through the door completely out of breath, and Tara had been whispering 'charms' over and over again. Willow had been a little less shocked, and had explained that they had seen some kind of demon that looked like a blonde woman with glowing hair, and who had some kind of mind control over the people on the street. Afraid they, too, would fall under the spell, they'd come racing to the Magic Box. Spike had been about to tell them that the woman they had seen was not a demon but a Veela, and that she was not evil, when Giles had clamped a hand over his mouth and hissed in his ear that the Muggles were not to know. Giles had then randomly selected some books, and put them on the table. 

The Scooby Gang had been skimming book after book for their so-called demon for the past three hours. Had this been an actual emergency, and not a diversion created by Giles to prevent Muggles from knowing about the Wizarding World (which wouldn't even be the case because Bulgarian Veela were magical sentients as well), Spike would be prepared to do research for 'the Gang'. However, since this wasn't even life threatening – and because he was forced to read books about demons that were rapidly becoming too boring to tell apart – he was not. Spike slammed the tome he had been reading shut and folded his arms decisively. "I'm not doing this anymore," he said. 

---  
Buffy glared at Spike, but she decided that identifying her demon was more important than calling to order stubborn vampires. She went back to a picture of a demon with two heads and three breasts: "Not really".   
She sighed and turned the page. A male demon with red eyes and a mane of black hair stared back at her. "Nope, it's not that one either," she mumbled to herself.   
Buffy turned another page. She sighed again and closed the book. She reached for another one and opened it. She looked back at Spike, who was still sitting with his arms crossed. "You are so lazy," she said accusingly.  
--- 

Spike looked around him. Tara was fervently turning pages and had a high pile of books to the right of her head.   
Willow was looking for her mystery not-demon in a book of Fairy Tales. But, Spike thought, judging by the rate she's advancing; she isn't looking through it but reading it.   
Buffy now had her head in her hands and was staring at her book.   
The soldier boy was not even visible behind his large copy of 'Maneaters: demonic beauties you'll want to stay away from'. It made sense he would choose a book filled with pretty women.   
The cause of all the frustration, his boredom, and Tara's panic himself, was reading a magazine. It would have been cleverly concealed if the top weren't peeking out from an ancient Slayer Chronicle.   
Harris currently had his face on the charming picture of some reptilian creature. He looked like he was trying very hard to fall asleep.   
Next to him, Anya was trying to look interested.   
To his left and to Anya's right was Dawn. The brunette was muttering under her breath, glaring daggers at her sister. Apparently, she had had to give up a party at a friend's for useless research duty.

Willow's description left no doubt in his mind. Willow and Tara had seen a Veela. He knew she wasn't a demon and it wasn't hard to tell who else did. If this were a potentially dangerous situation, Giles would never have been reading a magazine; he would have been tearing through those books as if the ground would open up under him and he would be dragged to Tartaros if he slowed down. He had to admit it was more of a guess with Anya, but it was nearly impossible for someone who had been a demon for over a thousand years to have never even heard of Veela. Technically, along this line of thinking, Finn could know as well. However, logic ruled out that idea. He knew that boy. Riley Finn would have walked away from combat if there were only a lovely body waiting for him.

Spike looked around again. They were all determined to find their demon. As much as he hated even to think it, this was not fair to any of them. It had been a beautiful day and the night would have been perfect for a candlelit midnight picnic, or just for a walk. Even patrolling would be nice in this weather. But a conservative ex-Watcher was keeping them all inside. Maybe I should tell them, he thought. He shook his head. He wasn't certain if he should risk that.   
On the other hand, he could very well be here for at least another three hours if he didn't. The night was too perfect to be locked up inside. Spike decided to tell the truth to the others. He should never have even _thought_ of acting according to laws he was a hundred-and-ten percent against in the first place, let alone playing along with a game of deceit like this one. "You won't find anything in those books, you know."

Dawn slammed her book shut, smashed it against the table for good measure and went back to glaring at her older sister. Anya said something that sounded like 'finally' and stretched. Harris initially raised his head in confusion, but once he had processed the words, sighed in relief. Buffy's boy reluctantly lowered his book and seemed to blame Spike for ruining his fun. Buffy was banging her book against her forehead and was sending daggers in Spike's direction from beneath its cover. Tara was obviously afraid that bad news would be coming in her direction any moment now. Giles was frowning and probably hoping Spike would die on the spot. Willow just looked expectant.   
"The woman they saw wasn't human, that's true. However, she was no demon either. She's a Veela, and won't do this place any harm. I didn't say anything before because the Watcher here told me not to. It's something to do with laws that should not exist in the first place."  
"Spike," Giles said threateningly.   
"No. It's a beautiful night and they," he indicated Willow and Tara, "should be having a picnic in the moonlight; not be worried to death about a vegetarian. And she," Spike put his arm around Dawn, "should be partying with her friends; not researching something she will never find because you've purposely been misleading them."

Buffy looked at Giles for confirmation, but the look on his face said more than enough. "Well, you heard him. Get out of here and go enjoy your wonderful night," he said.  
Everyone got up to leave but Giles grabbed Spike by the collar of his duster and made him sit down again. "Everybody except for _William_ here, that is. Get out. Spike and I are going to have a little chat."

---  
The other seven quickly left the Magic Box, some to go and enjoy the night, others just because Giles' behavior had scared them. Dawn had raced off to see if her friend would still let her in. Willow and Tara went to have a picnic at a quiet part of the beach and maybe even some midnight swimming. Buffy vainly tried to convince Riley to spend the night with her, and Xander nearly had to drag Anya away from her beloved shop.  
---

Spike watched Giles pace around the shop with an irrational feeling of apprehension. Giles' hands were behind his back. Spike thought he did it to keep his hands away from his wand. He'd never seen anyone get so mad over a minor (or rather a non-) concealment breach. Giles stood still and gave Spike a look that promised illegal spells if he so much as blinked. "There is a reason to not telling them, Spike. If you hadn't noticed it yet, they are Muggles."  
Spike opened his mouth to answer, but Giles cut him off. "Not a word, Spike. They are Muggles, and as such, they aren't supposed to know there are species besides humans and demons. In fact, they aren't even supposed to know about the existence of vampires and other demons. For goodness' sakes, Wizards should not even know that. Now please tell me you had a better reason for telling them than that it's a fine night?"

Spike stared at Giles intensely. "I have a lot of reasons that are better in my mind, but that would never even occur to you," he said calmly.   
"And what might those be?" Giles said with a sigh.  
Spike sighed as well but decided to speak up. "I truly don't understand why we are hiding our world from them. I've always thought that the concealment laws were ridiculous and useless. When I was alive, I was a member of the Youths for Honesty and Trust between Our Worlds organization. That would be the main one."

Giles truly looked like he was considering just grabbing his wand and using the Cruciatus Curse on Spike right then and there. This revelation seemed to have annoyed him even more. "You were one of _them?" he spat.  
Spike had to resist the urge to take a step back. "Yes."  
"Even so, I am the one in charge here. That means you not only answer to me but also obey a direct order."  
"What? You still think like a Watcher," Spike said shaking his head in amused shock.   
"That may be so— oh, never mind. Just get out of here before I lose my temper and do something I'm going to regret tomorrow."_

Spike didn't need to be told twice and bolted out the door. Giles might be playing on the side of good now, but he had once been known as the Ripper, a vicious and powerful dark Wizard. 'Come to think of it, his Ripper days were in the early years of Voldemort's assault on this world. Could he have been a Death-Eater, The Watcher? This is simply jumping to conclusions that may very well be the wrong ones. Some of that bleach must've seeped into your brain. He wouldn't have be—' Spike was jerked from his thoughts when he crashed into someone. "Watch where you're going," he snarled at the woman in front of him.  
No, it wasn't a woman. It was a Veela; probably the one the Wiccans had seen earlier. He had to look up to look into her eyes – to look into her _green eyes. Veela did not have green eyes. For that matter, no one but a Potter had that colour of green in his or her eyes. "Michelle? Michelle Potter?"  
"Well, yes. Wait a minute… William Malfoy?"  
"William Malfoy in the flesh, love. We went to Hogwarts together. I never expected to meet with you on friendly terms," he said, trying to hide a smile.   
"Well, don't forget we ran into each other," she laughed.   
"Literally ran into each other. What do you say to a drink at the only club in this town?"  
"I say 'okay'."_

Five minutes later, they were sitting at a table at the Bronze. "Are you hungry?"  
"Yes, quite hungry actually. I haven't eaten anything since I left Britain. What do they serve here?"  
"See for yourself at the bar," he said.  
The two ordered quick snacks and walked back to their table. "What brings you to Sunnyhell?"  
Michelle blinked. "Eh… Sunnydale. We call it Sunnyhell because the entire town was built on a Hellmouth," Spike explained.   
"This is supposed to be confidential until I've spoken with the Minister, but I'll tell you: Albus asked me to alert Rupert Giles of the return of Lord Voldemort. He is supposed to accompany me to the Ministry in Los Angeles. You don't happen to know him, do you? I've been looking for him for the past three-and-a-half hours."  
"What a coincidence. I spent that time trying to find out what kind of demon you were. The Watcher wants to keep everything of non-demonic origin kept under wraps. But… why can't you go to the Ministry alone? After we graduated from Hogwarts you joined the Order of the Phoenix."

"Yes, I did. That's exactly why I can't get custody of my young great-grandnephew, Harry. They keep telling me it's too dangerous. But you don't know his aunt and uncle. They treat him like a House-Elf— eh… no offence, William. He lived in a cupboard under their stairs for ten bloody years!" tears shimmered in Michelle's eyes.   
"I don't understand. They might be his closest living relatives, but you're his closest Wizard relative. Shouldn't custody of him be given to you by M.o.M. law?"  
"It doesn't matter; in essence, I work for the secret service, even if I am technically a soldier and not an intelligence agent. I'm not allowed to have custody of any children not my own by that same law."  
Spike smiled encouragingly. "Michelle, he's the child they think has defeated Voldemort. Those people will have to treat them better eventually. How old is he now, by the way?"  
"Harry is turning fifteen the thirty-first. I just wish he could stay somewhere safe..."  
"I have to agree. But how can anyone think of leaving someone whose life is being threatened by the biggest threat to thei— our— _this world unprotected at a Muggle's house?"  
"He's not unprotected, William. A retired agent lives down the street from him. And to answer your initial question: I have no idea. All I need to know is that I work for the Order and Albus is the Leader I must answer to. I trust him. He told me to get this Giles and so I will."_

Spike laughed heartily. "It's actually nice to see you're still so practical and together. I used to really hate you for that, you know."  
Michelle smiled. "From this confession I assume I can take it you're still as impulsive as you were at Hogwarts?"  
"I'm worse now," he said with a smirk.  
They both shared a laugh. "It's a real shame we never we never did this when we were both still at Hogwarts. And about good old Rupes, Michelle, I wouldn't go visit him right now if I were you…"  
"Why not?" she asked confused.   
"He's in a very bad and most likely very unstable mood at the moment. Go see him in the morning."  
"I don't have a room for the night; so I'm afraid I can't."  
"You could stay at my place, but there are a few things you should know: _one, my family shot Cardia on May sixth 1880, and the day after that a vampire Seer called Drusilla found me. I was incredibly depressed, and I wanted nothing more than to die, so I let her bite me. However, instead of killing me, she turned me. _Two_, a little less than a year ago a branch of the American Muggle Government captured me, and shoved a chip up my brain. The damn thing electrocutes my brain if I try to hurt someone who is more than half human. I haven't really tried to get rid of it, don't ask why. _Three,_ I live in a cemetery and in a crypt. I know I have enough Galleons in my personal vault to buy this entire town, but I still resort to tomb raiding. _Four_, at any given time a tiny blonde Slayer by the name of Buffy Summers might come storming in, very much unannounced."_

Michelle seemed to consider the offer. She'd probably already heard of Sunnydale's reputation of strange and sudden disappearances from hotel rooms. "Alright. I'll come with you to your … crypt. Why exactly _do_ you live in a crypt, William? You could take over that Muggle software company… what's it called again?"  
"Microsoft."  
"Yes. You could take over Microsoft and you could still swim in gold."  
"Maybe it's just that nasty impulsiveness of mine rearing its head again."  
"Maybe it is. Let's go, William. This is on me, by the way."  
Michelle walked up to the bartender and handed him three ten-dollar bills. "Keep the change," he heard her say.

As they walked to Spike's crypt, they chatted some more. "I was wondering – and this is just out of curiosity – how much do they pay you?"  
"Well, I don't get a set amount of money per month, or year. I get paid by successfully completed missions."  
"Really? How much?"  
"It depends on the nature of the mission really, but it's usually about a hundred-thousand Galleons."  
Spike stopped walking and stared at her. "A hundred-thousand Galleons?"  
"Considering the risks I take and the sacrifices I'm forced to make, they should be paying me at least a million for every finished job," Michelle said vehemently.  
Spike fell silent. Michelle was right. She had had to give up custody of her young nephew, who was now being mistreated by his guardians, for her work. She deserved at least some financial compensation for it. Though, one million Galleons? That wasn't compensation anymore.

"Wait. If Voldemort is indeed back; why hasn't the British Ministry done anything about it?"  
Michelle bit her lip. "First of all because Cornelius Fudge is the worst Minister of Magic a country could possibly have; secondly because publicly announcing that the Wizard they fear the most is back would likely cause mass-hysteria… and lastly because he used Harry's blood and old dark magic to generate a new body for himself, and killed another Hogwarts boy. And because of that Harry was in shock when he told Albus and Fudge, which gives Fudge just enough room to dismiss Harry's statements as merely delusions caused by the trauma."  
"I see. Your nephew seems to have been through a lot the past few months. How does he stay sane?"  
"His friends keep him strong. That and the classic Potter thirst for life."  
"You didn't get much of that," Spike pointed out.   
"I am Veela. I flirt with death," Michelle said jokingly.   
"Just with death?" Spike asked with a small grin playing around his lips.   
"I'm afraid I can't flirt with men too much. My work is much too dangerous for something like that."

Spike smirked triumphantly. "See, that's where my job is better than your job."   
"And what exactly is your job?"  
"Helping the Slayer fight and kill the baddies."  
Michelle snickered. "That's not funny," Spike protested.

Spike stopped at his crypt. "This is my 'house'," he said and opened the door.   
Michelle raised an eyebrow questioningly when she saw only an old couch that had definitely seen better days, a TV-set and a mini-fridge. "I live on the lower level. It's just through that trapdoor," Spike explained, waving his hand.  
A trapdoor appeared slowly. Spike opened it and jumped down onto the lower level of the crypt. Michelle climbed down the ladder and joined him. Upon seeing the sharp contrast between this interior and the one of the ground level, she raised another eyebrow. "You can take the boy out of the manor, but can you take the manor out of the boy?" Spike asked, shrugging apologetically.   
"Apparently not," Michelle grinned.

"Thank you again for the offer. Goodnight."  
"'Night."  
They both got into the bed. "Mmm, nice bed. I'm exhausted. Do you know I haven't slept since two days ago?" Michelle remarked before she closed her eyes and got to sleep.   
"I do now," Spike muttered, suppressing a yawn. "Lights out," he whispered, and the room became dark. 

The dream Spike had that night was the nightmare he had had shortly after Cardia's murder – with a twist. This time, Cardia wasn't the only short blonde Slayer screaming at him. The present short and blonde Slayer, Buffy, was there as well.  
Cardia was repeating her age-old accusations; and Buffy had joined in. 

When he woke up the following morning, he felt the tears that had dried on his face, but strangely enough, he felt somewhat relieved, not broken as he usually did when he dreamt about Cardia. He felt something between rested, and not at all rested, as if there were two parts of him warring for the entire feeling. It was a strange sensation, and Spike decided not to think about it too much.  
He looked at the person on the other side of the bed. His guest was still asleep, and it looked like she would stay like that for a good while longer. Spike himself wasn't entirely rested yet either, so he closed his eyes again and fell back to sleep.

---  
"Will, Will!" Michelle sighed and gave up on trying to wake him by calling his name.   
Instead, she tried to shake him out of his slumber. She still had to find this Giles character, and she only had a vague idea of what he looked like. She also didn't know where to find him yet. "Oh come on, Will, wake up!"  
---

Spike opened his eyes and blinked. "What?" Spike asked groggily.   
"I still need to find this Giles," Michelle said a little impatiently.   
Spike sat up and gave her a look. "You said yourself yesterday that you hadn't slept for two days. You hardly ate anything last night – and that was just snacking – and you hadn't eaten since before you got on the plane. Get yourself freshened up and eat something first. Giles will still be there in an hour and a half. I'll take you to him then, all right?"  
Michelle smiled a little embarrassedly. "Yeah, okay… I'm going to go take a shower now."  
Spike smirked. "Let me guess, you haven't bathed since you left Britain?"  
Michelle nodded and walked past the curtain to the bathroom.

Spike sat down and replayed the last day in his mind. Yesterday night he had nearly run into a short, sneaky man who had seemed to be staking out the Magic Box on his way to Giles' apartment. It was his turn to keep an eye on the shop – with its track record of being broken into, plundered, and having its owners murdered, one could never be too careful, and it was better not to take any risks. Even though Giles had been the owner of the Magic Box for four months already, and in those four months, nothing had happened; he and Anya still demanded that the shop be kept an eye on four times a night. Dawn was the only one who had successfully managed to get out of it; the rest of them had tried to do the same, but failed. 

Nothing had happened except for the incident two weeks ago, when Harmony had come storming in completely hysterical, and so terrified that she accidentally sent two phials crashing to the floor – creating bunnies that in turn scared Anya so badly she nearly swept the cash desk off the counter. Harris had had to dump a bucket of ice-cold water over Harmony's head before she had calmed down enough to describe the creature that had scared her so much. Harmony said a huge snake had chased her through three cemeteries before she had managed to shake it, and that she saw a three-headed dog sitting on the roof of a crypt. From the nearby church, at least according to Harmony, the priests were calling for help. 

Spike, Buffy, Willow, and Harmony had gone back to the cemetery, and had taken a look inside the church. There was no one there, only man-shaped burn-marks on the church floor. Harmony, who had calmed down and was taking a better look at the walls, suddenly said that all the crosses had been upturned. And when they looked up to see what she was talking about they saw she was right; all the crucifixes had somehow been turned upside down. The perpetrators had turned out to be people Dawn knew from school, who had used an impressive array of dark spells to summon all kinds of demons and creatures. They had been handed over to a Coven from LA, where they had been sentenced.

He'd told the ex-Watcher about the man, but Giles said that there was nothing to worry about. On his second round, the man was still there, and when he reported that to Giles, Buffy was sent to check out the situation. She'd threatened him with lasting mutilation if he didn't get the hell out of Sunnydale. The third and fourth time Spike had inspected the shop, the bloke hadn't returned. During the day, he'd watched television, had a talk with Dawn, and sent the brunette back to school.   
Dawn's truancy appeared to be chronic, and nothing he, Joyce, Giles, Buffy, or anyone else said could make her change her ways. If someone caught her cutting class, they sent her back to school. The problem was that Dawn was ahead on every subject except mathematics. Dawn had passed over fourth and fifth grade and had missed some tricks for calculating – she had a knack for languages but she just couldn't employ it in mathematics. She did fine in physics and chemistry, but she needed to work on her math. However, Dawn wasn't used to working on things, or not understanding them, and despite being two or three years younger than most of her classmates, she had no trouble keeping up. But she did keep missing her tests.

Then, later that afternoon, Willow and Tara had spotted Michelle; he ran into her, and they talked. Spike thought about the man who had been near the shop. After what Michelle had told him about Voldemort's return, it was possible the little man had been a Death-Eater scout.

"William, I'm out of the shower, you can come in if you want," Michelle said from behind him. Spike started and jumped up. "You're unusually deep in thought," Michelle observed.   
"It's nothing. I'll be in the shower for the next half-hour, and then I'll be gelling my hair back for another fifteen minutes," he said and picked up a shirt from the chair.  
Michelle nodded and went back to trying to dry her waist-length hair. "You really should just let it curl. It looks cute," she said. Spike picked up his leather pants and said, "I'll stop combing the curls out of my hair if you cut your hair to shoulder-length," he dared. Michelle snorted. "Yeah, right. I am not going to dye my hair, I am not going to cut my hair off, I am not going to do anything with my hair," she huffed.   
"I'm not leaving the curls," Spike said, disappearing behind the curtain and turning on the shower. "If you want breakfast, there is a cupboard next to the mini-fridge. There ought to be _something_ healthy between the junk food and the candy," he yelled over the noise of the shower. He heard Michelle climb up the ladder and walk to the cupboard he'd told her about. "William," she said, loud enough for the inhabitants of Los Angeles to hear, "what do you _eat_?"  
"Mostly I drink blood," he said, "but besides that a lot of useless junk."  
"Yes, I noticed."

A small hour later, they were both sitting in front of the TV. Michelle was eating a slice of bread with tomato and salt. She'd found the bread and the tomatoes after wading through a mountain of high-calorie food; the salt had simply been standing on the fridge. "Are you sure that's still edible?" Spike asked half-concerned and half-joking.   
"It's fine; but if I come down with severe food poisoning I demand a blood transfusion," Michelle mumbled. "And can you please change the channel?"  
"No."

---  
Buffy marched through the graves. Seeing Spike was always the last thing she wanted to do. Unfortunately, Spike had made Sunnydale his permanent home, and had somehow found himself a semi-spot into their group. So, instead of just having to see him once in a while, she was forced to not only be around him, but patrol with him twice a week. 

All the couples (except for her and Riley – and if she wanted to she could stretch the truth a bit and count Spike and Harmony, but they weren't actually together and Harmony was only involved with them for protection and resources, not because she wanted to fight the good fight) patrolled together at least twice a week; Dawn snuck out at night to patrol on her own because nobody wanted to have to deal with her pranks in battle, and because their mother had officially forbidden her to go along on patrol if she didn't behave herself. Riley wanted his so-called freedom to maneuver without being outdone by his girlfriend – but Buffy knew that translated to wanting to have the freedom to spend time with his _other girlfriend. _

Buffy had accidentally found out when she thought she'd been tracking a vampire mobster to their hideout. Instead, it had turned out to be a vampiress small-time criminal, and wasn't heading for a mafia hideout, but to an old abandoned frat-house, on her way for a date with Buffy's boyfriend. She'd run away as fast as she could and cried herself to sleep that night. When she woke up the next day, she wasn't so sure it was real anymore. She'd hoped it was all just a bad dream, but patrol-duty with Spike that week had woken her from _that_ particular dream. 

Giles always stayed behind as the planner, because technically he was in charge and so could do whatever he wanted to do. Unfortunately, that left her and Spike as the last patrol team two nights a week. "Stupid vampire. I would – four letter word I'm _not gonna say out loud – my – _another_ four letter word I'm not gonna say out loud in this context – to see him being proven wrong just _once_," Buffy pouted.  
---_

The door of the crypt slammed open. "Spike, Giles told me to get you," Buffy said from the doorway.   
"He said that if you didn't come with me I could threaten you with Mr. Pointy," she said, taking her trusty stake out of the pocket of her leather jacket. "So, really, don't come along willingly and let me have a little fun, okay?"

Spike crossed his arms: "Normally I would, Slayer, but I have a guest who needs to see Giles as well."  
"A guest? Oh…"  
"—Hi, I'm Michelle. I take it you're the tiny blonde Slayer by the name of Buffy Summers who at any given time might come storming in very much unannounced?"

Buffy stared at Spike indignantly and rolled her eyes. "I can't believe you said that! Wait… your hair glows. You're the… whatever Wills saw yesterday."  
"Eh… yeah, I suppose I would be the whatever your friends saw yesterday." Michelle turned to Spike. "I don't mean to be rude, but she looks exactly like…" Michelle trailed off, amazed at the resemblance between Buffy and Cardia.   
"I know. It's amazing, isn't it?" he whispered.

Buffy tapped her foot against the crypt floor. "Hello? I need to take you to Giles and be all important Slayer-y."  
"Is she always like this?"  
"Most of the time, yes she is."

The trio walked through the tunnels directly under Sunnydale's streets. "Is it true that these tunnels run along the same pattern as the streets?" Michelle asked, confused by the complexity of the underground system.   
"Sunnydale has two layers; one above ground and one below. These tunnels run parallel to the streets and every building has a basement that is connected to the tunnels," Spike explained. 

"But that leaves the city and its inhabitants vulnerable to attacks from… all sorts of things," Michelle said. She was amazed by the way Sunnydale was built and run. It was completely against what they had taught her when she was still training to be an agent for the Order.   
"That was sorta the idea the Mayor had when he built it, yeah," Buffy said. The small blonde took a right turn and counted doors. At the fourth one she stopped. "Here we are," she said and unlocked the door.   
"We found out about the tunnels years ago and we put locks on the doors leading to our houses and to the Magic Box," Buffy said when she opened the door.

Spike and Michelle followed Buffy up the stairs out of the basement, and into Giles' office. Giles was already there, waiting, and Dawn was in there as well. The younger Summers had been threatened with grounding if she didn't study for her exams. "What is she doing here?" Giles demanded when he saw Michelle.   
"There's something I must speak with you about, urgently."  
"I'm going to have a little talk with Spike here first," Giles said.  
Michelle frowned. "I'm an agent for the Order of the Phoenix. Albus Dumbledore told me to contact you and to go with you to the Ministry of Magic."  
"Fine," he turned to Spike, "you and I will talk later."  
Giles and Michelle walked out the door and got into Giles' car.

"Why is he so mad at you? What did you do?" Buffy asked with a grin.  
Having fun at the other's expense was what they did best, after all. "I got you all out of a boring research-night by telling you the truth."  
"Huh?"  
"It's a long story and normally I would have no problem at all telling you, but I'm rather fond of my head."  
"I'm not. So spill."

~~~   
Giles pulled into the street of the Hyperion hotel. "I'm going to pick up someone else to go with us," Giles explained to Michelle, who was sitting in the car looking truly bored. Michelle watched Giles disappear through the door and sighed. It had seemed such a simple mission when Albus gave it to her; alert the Ministers of Magic in countries you think will accept the return of Voldemort, go to the United States first and take Rupert Giles with you – he should be in a town called Sunnydale, which is north of Los Angeles. It has its own international airport. 

Michelle laid her head against the headrest and sighed. It was bad enough she had had to come to the States, but to see a fellow compatriot act like one of those Yanks was almost too much. Stress and jet lag certainly weren't helping, either.  
Giles appeared in the doorway, followed by another man. "We're taking my car," he said. Michelle shrugged and lithely got out of the car. She was beginning to regret listening to Albus this time. Had she been on her own, she could have handled this much faster. "I don't care whose car we're taking so long as it gets us to the Ministry," she snapped. 

She'd gotten to their side of the road and was nearly at the door. When she got a good look at the face of the other man, she stared. "Your hair grows against every force of nature," she said blankly.  
The man with the anti-gravity hair rolled his eyes. "I'm Angel."  
Michelle sighed again but decided not to comment, because it seemed like they were finally going somewhere, both literally and figuratively.

---  
"I hope you're a better driver than Lorne is," Angel grumbled from underneath the covers, "I might not be alive but I really, really like having a body."  
"I take it that I'm a better driver than this Lorne fellow then," Giles said.   
"Maybe the Veela-girl should drive," Angel muttered. 

"My name is Michelle and I'm one of those people whose vocabulary lacks words like 'speed-limit'; 'traffic-light'; and 'brakes'," Michelle threw over her shoulder.  
"Not another one?" Angel asked horrified. 

He hated having to depend on others to drive him during the day; especially since in his case 'others' consisted of a demon from an alien dimension who couldn't drive a car correctly if his life depended on it, a guy who had grown up fighting vampires and driving straight through lines of people, an ex-Watcher who didn't seem to be aware of the existence of brakes, and a Sunnydalean actress who seemed to have learned how to drive from none other than Spike himself. Maybe it was time to get a van with those special windows so _he _could drive during the day.  
---

The car pulled into the Ministry parking lot, and Giles parked the car in the first available spot. Angel sat up and peeked over the side of the car. "Hello? Highly flammable vampire here?"  
Giles sighed and restarted the engine. He stopped just beneath a balcony, so Angel would be in the shade. Angel threw the covers off and jumped out of the car. Michelle got out as well. Giles turned and re-parked the car in its original spot.

Giles returned and gave Angel his keys back. He and Michelle entered the building. Angel followed a few feet behind, with his arms folded. He was complaining constantly, and Michelle was trying very hard to keep herself from throwing a fireball at him. Instead, she walked to the reception desk to request a meeting with the Minister of Magic. 

"Well, Miss, we don't often allow meetings with our Minister without an appointment made at least a week in advance," the receptionist said. The boy hadn't even looked up and was mindlessly reciting Ministry protocols.  
Blindly following rules was something Michelle hated – she believed that an order should be rethought at least twice, and then reconsidered again. "Look, boy, I'm not in the mood for this. I'm an agent for the Order."  
"Which one?"  
"The Order of the Phoenix of course, you wanker!" Michelle yelled, quickly losing her patience.   
"I'm going to need some proof."  
"I'd show you, but I can't show you anything if you don't look at me."

The boy finally looked up. Michelle searched her coat and fished out a special kind of wallet with a phoenix on it. "That could be false."  
Michelle took a deep, but not exactly calming breath, and flipped open the wallet. A silver badge with a phoenix surrounded by flames was revealed. 'European League of Intelligence', it said over the phoenix' head. "That still doesn't say anything."  
Michelle rolled her eyes and lifted the phoenix. "Michelle Georgina Potter; born July seventh 1856; Wizard; Division of Battle and Information. Yes, that seems to be all right. It's the second stair from here. Get off on the fifth floor."  
Michelle flipped her wallet shut and shoved it back into her pocket. She stomped down the hall and stopped at the foot of the second stairs. "Please do show your badge to me so that I may shout it out for everyone to hear and put your life in potential danger," she muttered under her breath.

Giles and Angel joined her, and the three of them stood on the bottom step. The stairway turned twice, and then twisted up. It stopped at the third floor, where a young woman got on, and then stopped again at the fifth. Giles, Angel, and Michelle stepped into the hall and looked around. Michelle glanced at a sign. "'Fifth floor: Minister of Magic's offices'… how does that help? Oh, wait. There's something scribbled beneath it. 'If you're looking for Ben, it's the last door down the hall with the purple door'."

Michelle looked to her right. There was a purple door. "I know where we have to go, come on."  
Giles opened the door. "There must be at least fifteen rooms. What does the Ministry keep here?"  
Angel folded his arms again but followed Giles and Michelle. Giles hadn't added that Michelle was an agent for the Order when he had come storming in saying that Angel had to come with him to the Ministry.

Michelle stopped at the last door in the hallway. There were two plaques on it. The first read 'Ben Flame — Minister of Magic'; the second: 'Donnovan Flame — Minister of Magical Justice'. There was something carved into the door: 'Yes, Donnovan is written with a double n; and yes, I'm here too'.

Angel had to hide a snicker behind a cough, but he couldn't fool Giles. "Glad to see you're finally over behaving like a child."  
"Yeah, yeah," Angel waved him away.  
Michelle rolled her eyes and opened the door. "Cooome on iiin."

"Which one of us were you looking for?" The dark blond Flame said.   
"Eh…" Michelle hesitated; the two looked so much alike that Michelle couldn't tell them apart.   
"Magic," the dark blond one asked, indicating himself, "or Magical Justice?" he continued, indicating his slightly lighter haired brother. 

"I was supposed to speak with the Minister of Magic, but this concerns the Ministry of Magical Justice as well."  
Donnovan Flame (at least Michelle thought that the slightly lighter haired man was Donnovan Flame) moved his chair behind his brother's desk.   
"Shoot."  
"Eight days ago Lord Voldemort regained material form, using Harry's blood."  
"Using Harry _Potter's _blood?"  
"Yes."

"So he is back. He was never gone, just disembodied…"  
"It's not as if we don't believe you – we've had this annoying hunch that he had returned for this past week – but I'm afraid we're going to need actual evidence if we want to do anything about it."  
"But Minister Fudge won't acknowledge his return, and Harry was the only witness who lived to tell."

"Wait just a minute, we'll continue this later. Can you tell us who you are first?"  
"Oh yeah… I'm Michelle Potter, Harry's great-grandaunt and a member of the Order."  
"I am Rupert Giles."  
"Ange—" Giles elbowed Angel in the ribs, "Liam Angelum," Angel finished moodily. 

"Right, then. If Voldemort has a body again, is it the same one he had before he was defeated?"  
"I believe so."  
"Miss Potter, we'll see what we can do. But I'm afraid we're powerless until the Dark Mark hovers above our homes again."  
Michelle sighed. "I understand. I hope that there are other ways to warn the people. Have a good day."

---  
"I'm not coming with you," Michelle said outside, "I'm going to go to Denmark. Give William my goodbyes."  
Angel shook his head and waited for Giles to bring his car to the shaded areas beneath the Ministry balconies. "You're coming back to Sunnydale with me."

"Why?"  
"Because if the Ministry can't do anything about this, we'll have to think of something ourselves."  
Angel thought about that. Giles was partially right of course – something had to be done; but there wasn't a lot they could do. And wasn't he supposed to have a say in his own life?

"We'll drive past the hotel so you can pack for three days and can make a plausible excuse to your Muggles."  
Angel blinked. He didn't know Giles was still so old-fashioned in his thinking. "Fine. Let's go," Angel said, hiding beneath the covers. Somehow telling Giles that his behavior had already been considered old-fashioned when _he had been young didn't seem to be a very good idea._

Angel got out of his car and raced into the hotel. He told Cordelia, Gunn and Lorne that he was needed in Sunnydale for a reason he didn't yet fully understand (yes, it had something to do with Giles but he wasn't sure what exactly). Cordelia saw right through him, so he ran up the stairs to pack to avoid having to answer her.

He wasn't even sure why Giles needed him to pack. If Giles was so set on doing something about Voldemort, he wasn't going to have much time to sleep or change his clothes in the first place. He grabbed three sets of clothing, and threw them into a weapon bag. He hoped they fitted together, even if he was certain he wouldn't need them.

He quickly got down the stairs and was nearly 'safely' outside when Cordelia appeared. "Where are you really going?" she demanded.   
Angel sighed and looked her in the eyes. "I'm going to Sunnydale, but that's all I can tell you," he said and threw the heavy covers over himself.   
"Angel!"  
He ignored her and got into the car. "Angel!" He hated lying to Cordelia.  
~~~

"Spike, get into my office immediately."  
Spike crossed his arms and stayed at the table. "No, Bit, that's not it. Look closer, it—"  
"I'm going to ram this pen through your hand if you're gonna tell me that math is just something you have to see," Dawn threatened and raised her pen. 

Spike hastily took his hands of the table and thought of something else to say. "You're doing fine, but look at your answer again. There's a m—" Spike couldn't finish his sentence because Giles had yanked him out of his chair and into his office.   
"Hey! He's helping me. Return the vampire," Dawn said to the door behind which Giles and her current math tutor had disappeared. 

"We still have a conversation to finish."  
Spike leaned against Giles' desk and crossed his arms. "No we don't."  
"Yes, we do."

"I will not have this conversation, nor will I admit I was wrong because I wasn't. And it might do you some good to know that Veela – even if they're old classmates of mine – do not fall under M.o.M. jurisdiction."  
"They do when they're agents for the Order."  
"I don't have anything else to say to you," Spike said and walked out the door.

"Have you found your mistake yet?" he asked and sat down next to her again.  
"Yeah… I can't believe you didn't tell me," Dawn said embarrassed.  
Spike shrugged. "I was going to subtly hint at it, but you threatened to put a pen through my hand."  
"I thought you were going to say I wasn't seeing the math," she apologized.

"Spike, get back here," Giles said from his office.  
"Jawohl, Herr Giles!"  
Buffy gave him a death stare, "that is not funny."  
"It wasn't meant to be funny, Slayer."  
"I'm so sorry, Vampire."

"You think you're so funny, don't you?" Spike said. He had heard that particular line about three times the past week and frankly, it was getting old.   
"And you don't?"   
"Think you're funny? No, in fact this entire group desperately needs a sense of humour."  
"Bite me."  
"Gladly."  
---

Angel walked in the door to see Buffy and Spike fighting. "You're like siblings," he said shaking his head.   
"Thank you, Uncle Angel," Buffy muttered.  
Everyone in the room stared at her. "What? Can't I be annoyed about being lectured?" she said and got back to the book she was reading. 

"Well this is certainly a lively group," Angel muttered.  
Dawn glared at him but went back to studying for the math test that would decide her passing or failing the grade. Buffy didn't look up from her book, and Spike was sitting at the table with his arms folded and a stubborn look on his face. Anya was at the counter doing a quick check of the day's sales. The others weren't in his line of sight. "Spike, we need to talk to you."

Spike shook his head. "No. I'm not going to discuss that with you, either."  
"How did he know what we were talking about?" Angel asked confused.  
"He probably doesn't," Giles said.  
---

Spike stared at them, and left. It was no use trying to do something to keep Voldemort away from California, not with a total of three people anyway.

Spike walked into the Bronze and ordered a beer. He understood that Giles and Angel were worried about Voldemort. He knew they thought he was just being his irrational (and, according to them, a little stupid) self when he said that he wasn't.  
But he could hardly tell them that he was more than half Elverin; or that he was a Malfoy. Giles was a Watcher – whether he was employed by the Council or not – and it wasn't exactly a secret that the Council of Watchers and the Malfoy family hadn't been the best of friends for the past 2068 years.  
Ever since Rhanasme Malfoy had been chosen and was the first Slayer ever to break with the Council, the Malfoys had tried to bring them down. 

However, the Council had been around for fifteen thousand years – since the third Slayer had been called. Although, back then it had been more of a support group for the girl who had been forced to dedicate her life to exterminating a species created by an unfortunate turn of events.  
The origin of vampires lay with the departure of the demons, when the last demon left in this dimension turned out to be a very hungry d'Ésmergh. 

The d'Ésmergh had grabbed a soldier who was standing near the portal, and had started to drain him of his blood. The boy had tried to get away, and had wounded the demon so much it bled, thereby mixing their blood.  
A demon had returned from the portal, had helped to pull the d'Ésmergh off the young soldier, and had wrestled it into the rapidly closing portal.

When the portal had closed off completely, the doctors present ran over to check on the young boy and to see if he could somehow be saved. His condition seemed stable, which gave everyone hope. But there were three factors no one had calculated into the equation.  
There was the Elverin ability to stay alive even when one was mortally wounded; the binding powers of Elverin blood; and the unknown properties of d'Ésmergh blood.

During the night, the boy rose from his bed and drank the blood of the doctors who were trying to save his life. He had been half human, one-fourth Tiames, and one-fourth Elverin. He had the blood of a d'Ésmergh flowing through his veins. No scientist or magicologist – magical sentient or demon – had ever come close enough to a d'Ésmergh to examine its blood, and so little was known about them. Actually, at that time it came down to knowing they fed on blood, that they healed very fast and that they seemed dead because they had a very faint heartbeat - and that they were cold-blooded.

The new hybrid carried the blood of demons, magical sentients, and the ordinary species. The binding blood of the Elverin race had fused together the abilities of humans, Elverin, Tiames, and d'Ésmergh. He had nearly died from his wounds, and thus had no measurable heartbeat. Like a d'Ésmergh, he did not need oxygen; he was a fast healer, drank blood, could survive for long periods of time without food, and was barely even a rational creature. From his human half he kept the body, but a strange turn of events gave him a second face: a cross between the animalistic features of the d'Ésmergh and the face of humans. The nastiest vampire power, however, came from the Elverin: he could bite others and make them drink his own blood, and thus spread the epidemic of vampirism. The extraordinary strength came from his Tiames side; he was in a drugged state, and Tiames gain a substantial burst of physical power when they are drugged. In that state, they are far stronger than a Pyros running on pure adrenalin.

To balance out this powerful creature, the leaders of the magical sentient races decided to enhance its weaknesses. From then on, being in the sun burnt him, so he hunted at night. He was easily set on fire, despite Tiames fire tolerance, and he was burnt by blessed water. But the simplest means of defense – and at the same time, attack, was the cross. It was a variation on the four pointed star symbol used by the Elverin, Atlanteani and the Maresear. Not only did it burn him, it could also be used to stake the vampire. Like d'Ésmergh, he would crumble to dust when he was killed. But this wasn't enough, and more and more vampires were created – until nine months later, a female soldier received the same kind of physical power the vampire had.

The Powers That Be had created another line of unusual creatures - the Vampire Slayers. But they made the mistake of choosing the vampire's once-fiancée, and the girl refused to go after the source of vampirism. Two years later, she died in a traffic accident, and the first vampire died shortly after. The Slayer powers had had to go to another soldier. When the second Slayer died, a group of mostly humans came to visit the third Chosen One to offer her support – both in combat, and emotionally.

It took only two hundred years for the Support Council to corrupt into the Council of Watchers, and its members from people who wanted to help the Slayer into people who wanted to control her. Two thousand years ago, Rhanasme Malfoy had been called, the first Slayer in ten thousand years to have magical sentient blood. 

Rhanasme was a phenomenal Slayer, but never worked with the Council. What eventually did her in, after nine hundred and twenty years of Slaying, were her own stubbornness, and a virus. Rhanasme was the longest living Slayer in history, but she had also lived longer than everyone else who had the deadly and incurable disease, TELT.   
Her daughter received the power through the same Elverin blood bind that had created vampires, and since then every Malfoy had had the powers of a Slayer. Not that Rhanasme's long life had left the Council without a Slayer for nearly a thousand years; Rhanasme had gotten herself nearly killed on a holiday with her older sister when she had just been called.

It was strange. The Council had changed very quickly, and was now rooted deeply into every organization on the planet. For the past eleven hundred years, Spike's family had tried to stop the Council. However, should they actually succeed one day, they would also bring almost total chaos to this world. The Council, after all, predated all human organizations.

Spike looked up. Buffy and Harris were standing in the crowd. They were probably looking for him, so Spike got up and walked towards them. "Slayer, Harris, go tell the Watcher I'm not going to talk to him and Angel, and that they don't have to try. I'm going to go home," he said and left.

---  
"What was that?" Xander asked Buffy after Spike had disappeared into the crowd.  
Buffy shrugged. "I don't know, but he's being more… eh… what's the word?"  
"Weird?" Xander suggested, looking around to see if he could spot Spike's bleached head anywhere near him.   
"Not really, but it's good enough. He's being weirder than he normally is."  
Buffy and Xander left the club, and returned to the Magic Box to tell Giles what had happened. Giles was also far bossier than he had ever been.  
~~~

Spike woke from another dream about his old love and his current… – and Buffy. The resemblance between the two was so perfect it was frightening. Buffy and Cardia were more alike than Cardia and Psyche, who had been identical twins. Spike shook his head to keep his thoughts off the subject of Cardia Granger. He thought he heard something tapping against a window on the ground level of the crypt. "You complete idiot," he told himself, "that would be an owl that probably has a message for you."

Spike quickly climbed to the higher level of his crypt, and hastily opened the window. The owl flew in and stood on the television. Spike untied the letter it carried and unrolled the parchment envelope. The Hogwarts crest and its ridiculous motto stared back at him. 'Why would anyone make the motto of a school 'never tickle a sleeping dragon'?' he thought. Ever since he had been a first year, and had seen the words, he had been convinced that the Founders had been drunk when they had come up with the motto. Spike opened the envelope and took out the letter.

_ Dear mister William Malfoy,_

_Due to certain circumstances, the position of Defence__ Against the Dark Arts teacher has once again become available. I thought that this position would suit you. Judging by your old school-records, you oughtn't to have any trouble handling teaching. I, like Albus, make a habit out of not lying to anyone, so I will tell you what happened to the last teacher I hired. Last year I thought that Alastor 'Mad-Eye' Moody had agreed to come teach Defence for a year _– _and he had – __but the wizard who had come to Hogwarts and actually taught our students turned out to be Bartemius Crouch Junior. He also turned out to be a servant of Voldemort. In fact, the Dark Lord had carefully planned the entire year. Should you decide that you would take the position, I would advise you to be extremely cautious and to come to the Hogwarts castle as soon as you can. That would be a better idea for both you and Hogwarts. Whatever your choice might be, please send the owl back with a reply._

_ Sincerely,  
Minerva McGonagall,  
Deputy Headmistress of Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry_

Spike thought about it. Hogwarts _was one of the best schools of magic in the world, and nearly every teacher had a master title. On the other hand, it was half a planet away from this town. He found that he was fond of this small town big city despite its many… eccentricities. Of course, it was also possible that he liked Sunnydale so much not despite, but because of them. Still, no one in their right mind would turn down a job offer from a school like Hogwarts, New Moon Bay, or Jagerstulp._

Spike returned to the lower level of his crypt to look for something to write on, and something to write with. After ten minutes of searching between clothes and weapons, he pulled out a nearly blank sheet of paper that looked suspiciously like a page from one of Dawn's notebooks, and a pen he had once stolen from Giles. He scribbled a reply:

_ Dear Headmaster and Deputy Headmistress,_

_I'm taking the job, but as William Montgomery. It's no use causing confusion. I'll come to Hogwarts as fast as I can._

_ William Montgomery._

Spike folded up the paper and tore the envelope open, then turned it around and folded it in the shape of an envelope again. He told the owl where it had to go, and shooed it out the window. 

There was no shadow where he was standing at the moment, and Spike hoped that there was no one to see his hand not catching fire.  
  


He returned to the lower level, and started to search for Dawn's History of Art notebook. Dawn only followed one subject faithfully, and that was Arts. Somehow she had to have lost her notebook when she'd come to visit him last Friday.   
Spike triumphantly pulled out Dawn's peach-shaped History of Art notebook, and put it into the right pocket of his duster. From the same place, he fished out the three pages of notes Buffy had been looking for for the past two weeks. Spike put them in his pocket, next to Dawn's notebook. At least the things the Summers sisters owned could still coexist peacefully. 

He sat down on his double waterbed and pulled open a drawer on his nightstand. A cellular phone, a notebook, and a pen looked back at him. "Clever," he said to himself and took out the cell-phone.  
He pulled out the yellow pages from another drawer. He had a flight to book. 

"Yes, tomorrow at 22.00. Yes, thank you," Spike said and put his telephone away. It was time to reunite the Summers sisters with their lost notes.

~~~  
Anya leaned on the counter, and stared at the two Summers. For once, Dawn was actually worried about school. She was moaning over having to substitute her perfect notes with a book that hadn't been edited for a quarter of a century, and was making a big scene out of it. Buffy was claiming that her problem was far worse, and it was rapidly evolving into a by now classical Summers fight.

The last seven customers had been alternatively staring at the two of them, and at her. Once a man had actually offered to call the police to rid the Magic Box of 'those noisy, immature teenagers'. The man had failed to notice that she herself was nineteen as well. Anya _herself_ was now becoming annoyed with the two, and decided to do something about them. 

"Excuse me, ma'am, I'm going to get rid of those two. He," Anya grabbed Angel's arm and pulled him behind the counter, "is going to help you while I'm gone."  
Anya silenced Angel with a look before he could even open his mouth, and walked away. 

"Buffy, Dawn, not only is your behavior definitely upsetting the customers, it's driving me completely insane as well," Anya said. She folded her arms and stared at them.   
"What?" Buffy asked without interest.  
"If you would take the time to listen to me, you'd have heard 'what'. You're upsetting the customers and driving me insane," Anya said impatiently.  
Both the Summers frowned and glared at her. "Are you calling us deaf?"  
"No. I'm saying you're not listening. Now either go into Giles' office or the training room, or be quiet."  
"Forget it," Buffy said stubbornly.  
Anya told the two to stay where they were and went back to her counter. "I'll be shutting them up. In return you help the customers," she whispered to Angel.  
Angel nodded.

"Come with me," Anya ordered Buffy and Dawn.   
Annoyed, the two complied and stood up. "Where are we going anyway?"  
"To the office, of course."

---  
Spike saw the Magic Box coming up and quickly ducked inside of a store. He opened a door and snuck down the stairway to the basement, and the tunnel access. He'd prefer not to take the tunnels at all, but it really wouldn't do for those Scoobies to see him walking around on a cloudless day in broad daylight. They could ask questions he'd prefer not to answer, and he wasn't looking forward to another 'conversation' with a certain Watcher.  
He told himself to stop complaining about a thirty-second walk and opened the door to the tunnels. 

When he walked into the store, he found it Buffy- and Dawn-less. Anya herself wasn't even there. The only person in there he did know, was his hair-obsessed grandsire. He decided that having to hear Angel's rant about responsibility was better than looking for the Summers himself, and walked to the counter. 

"Where are Buffy and Dawn? I've got some papers that they've been looking for," he said and took Dawn's notebook and Buffy's pages out of his pocket. Spike didn't notice the letter fluttering beneath the counter.   
"They're in the office. They were freaking out over those pieces of paper you're holding, so Anya made them leave the store. Believe me when I say that you're doing us all a big favor by giving them back."

Spike thanked him and left, grateful to have been spared a lecture about his lack of responsibility. He opened the door to the office and stared at the two sulking girls. "Do these look familiar?"  
Both girls immediately jumped up and almost tore the treasures out of his hands. "Where did you get this?" Buffy asked angrily.   
"Well, Slayer, you know this lower level at my crypt where you've lost things before?"  
Buffy blushed, remembering the long list of items she had forgotten there. Dawn also had a nice colour on her cheeks. 

"I'm going to go now. I still don't want to speak to Giles."  
"Spike?" Dawn called from behind him, "This isn't gonna make Giles happy, you know!"  
"I know, Bit," he said and ducked back into the tunnel system.

~~~  
Spike listened to Buffy's ranting about the horrors that were her life. Her constant complaining annoyed him to no end, but he wisely chose to keep quiet and took another drink of his blood. He used the 'kiss the librarian' mug that he had stolen from Giles. If he didn't speak up, she wouldn't become aggressive, and just leave when she herself became depressed. 

This strange behaviour had begun around the same time Buffy and Dawn had become hostile as regarded each other. Buffy had come storming into the crypt, and had been ruder than usual. When he had called her on her behaviour, she'd punched him in the face.   
As long as he kept quiet, no one would end up hurt. He still hoped, after over two months, that these 'therapy sessions', as he secretly called them, would help her instead of just depressing her further.

Five minutes later, he heard her voice change and the Slayer stormed outside. "Why can't you help yourself?" he asked the absent Slayer. "I'd help you if I could, but I wasn't exactly raised to be helpful."  
Spike cringed at the obvious excuse, but he shook it off and started to think about his departure. He didn't trust Sunnydale's airport, so he had booked a flight at Los Angeles International airport. It was a three-hour drive to LA, but he knew that he could make it in two hours. That meant he had to leave at about seven that night to have enough time to find the actual airplane. Since it was five o'clock now, Spike decided that he had better start to pack.

Spike summoned all his books and piled them up into different categories. He was going to need a hundred suitcases this way. He sighed, but started to load the books into a trunk. He had never realized how many books he actually had; they didn't even fit into the thing. He made a motion with his left hand, and the books shrunk and formed a compartment in the trunk. Satisfied with their new size, he finished with the books, and started picking up his clothes from all across the room. 

Spike threw the clothes into the trunk, and made them fold themselves. He then made a separate compartment for his clothing as well. He threw his hair gel, combs, and other such accessories on the pile of clothing and looked around. He still had his collection of very unhealthy products on the ground level, and decided to put those into a backpack later. Spike carefully collected all of his magical items and put them into the trunk with great care. With a wave of his hand, they were all wrapped in old newspapers. Spike hoped they weren't old papers, but Giles'.

He looked at the impressive amount of weapons that were haphazardly scattered about and realized that he needed to find a way to get those through customs without ruining them. But with the shrunk books and clothing, and the magical items he also had in there, he thought it would be better to charm the whole bloody thing into looking like an ordinary suitcase filled to the brim with clothing.  
Spike grabbed his car keys off a table and ran to his car. Better to get the car now, and not have to bother with dragging his luggage to the parking lot at the cemetery gates. He could easily drive on the broad paths. 

Spike summoned a bag, and stuffed his alcohol and sweets into it. He took the bags of blood out of the mini-fridge and carried them down the ladder. With the weapons packed as well, the trunk was full once more. He had room for the blood, but that was it. He looked at his furniture, and then back at the trunk. Unless he wanted to end up with furniture that fitted into a dollhouse, he would have to leave it all. 

Spike undid the spell that gave him water and that made his bathroom. He didn't even have enough room for his sheets. He glanced at his watch. It was seven thirty already. Spike dragged the trunk up the ladder, grabbed the bag that was next to the mini-fridge, and stormed out the door. He threw the trunk and the bag into the car, and dived in. He slammed his foot down on the pedal and sped out onto the highway.

Spike slammed the door of his car, and waved his hand to lock the door. He had fifteen minutes to get himself on the plane, and he had been hoping to get there the legal way. He should have packed sooner. Spike flew down the corridors to pick up his ticket, and then, realizing he had thirty seconds to get on the plane from where he was now, teleported to his seat. He reached into his pocket for a cigarette, and found it empty, except for the pack of cigarettes and his lighter. The letter must have fallen out when he took out the Summers' notes. He wondered what the Watcher was going to do when he found it. He put out his cigarette and closed his eyes.  
~~~

Buffy walked into the crypt, looking for its resident not so owner. Giles wanted to talk to him again, and he seemed to have forgotten that Spike was –along with her—the number one stubborn individual on the planet. What Buffy failed to see was why it always had to be her who was sent to fetch him. Why couldn't Giles go himself? Or why didn't he send someone else, like Dawn or Willow, or someone else who got along with the vampire. She climbed down the ladder when she couldn't find him on the ground level. The lower level looked empty. There were no weapons lining the walls or just lying around; she couldn't find his bathroom, and there were no clothes to be found anywhere. Neither was the owner of those clothes, bathroom and weapons. Spike was gone.  
~~~

Angel sighed when Anya once again left him to handle the customers so she and Xander could go for a pizza. He stared holes in their backs when they walked out the door, and sighed again. Death by Anya wasn't something he was looking forward to. 

A plump woman came to the counter, and handed him two handfuls of crystals. Angel wondered what she was going to do with those, but scanned them all. "That's going to be $159, 95 please, ma'am," he said and put the two-dozen crystals in a bag.  
The woman handed him two one hundred dollar bills, and Angel moved to hand the change to her, when something brushed against his leg. Startled, he dropped the four bills and the nickel. When he crouched down to grab the money from underneath the counter, he saw a little black body run away and a piece of parchment lying next to ten dollar and five cents. He grabbed the bills, the nickel and the parchment, and straightened up. He gave the woman her crystals and her change, and then read the parchment. His eyes widened, and he walked to Giles' office.   
  


"I think you should read this," Angel said from the doorway.   
"Read what?"  
Angel threw him the piece of parchment. Giles caught it and read it. Dawn, who had been on her way to the Magic Box but was still on the other side of the block, could clearly make out the "_What?_" that was coming from the office. 

"Spike is going _where_ to teach _what_?" Giles exclaimed in shock.   
"He's going to Hogwarts to teach Defense Against the Dark Arts. Stranger things have happened at Hogwarts, you know that," Angel said.   
"How can they even consider hiring him, let alone offer him a job?"  
Angel shrugged, and wondered if this was a typical pureblood reaction or just something that was left over from his days as a Watcher. "Should I tell them?"  
Angel thought about it. "It's your decision, but I think I'd tell them… You can either tell them now or have them find out later. I can guarantee that you're not going to like the 'later' option, because if I know Spike, he'll send each of them a letter explaining everything. And, just for fun he'll send along wizard photographs and probably the Daily Prophet."  
"Do you think so?"  
"Yes, I do."  
Giles heaved a sigh. "Alright, I'll tell them. If what you're saying is true, I don't really have a choice."

---  
"Everybody listen. Spike is gone; he's off to England to teach at a school called Hogwarts. There is a world besides yours, a magical world, which we call the Wizarding World. You are what we call Muggles, people without magic," Giles began.   
"So what are Tara and I?" Willow interjected.   
"You, Tara, and others with your powers are Empowered Wiccans. 'Empowered Wiccans', Wiccans who have been given their powers and gifts by the Earth, as opposed to simply 'Wiccans', who are followers of Wicca and rely on the power of will to work their magic. That means you have higher levels of magic than those who just practice the religion…" Giles droned on for fifteen more minutes and everyone felt their attention slipping. 

"…Spike has been offered to teach at Hogwarts, one of the best schools of magic in the world. Naturally, he took that offer.   
But he has forgotten to tell me, which is why I'm telling you now. This is a crime in our world, and Spike is going to find that out in a moment," Giles concluded his lecture.

---  
Buffy was dizzy. Spike had left to teach at a school for wizards and witches? So Spike was a wizard then, and so was Angel. Giles had told them, so he must be a wizard as well. This was a bit too much shock for her. She realized something else: Giles and Angel had been lying to her for years. They hadn't told her the truth about this world, and it stung. It stung like when Giles had taken her powers for the Cruciamentum on her eighteenth birthday; like when Angel broke off their relationship and left for Los Angeles without a word. Could she even trust these people anymore? 'Spike would tell me to stop being a loser now,' she thought.

She looked around. Xander's jaw was inches away from the floor; Anya was sitting on a chair looking lost in thought, or maybe memories. Dawn looked the way Buffy felt, Riley was looking at Giles, and his face was showing no emotion whatsoever; Willow was deep in thought, and pondering what they had just been told. Tara was staring wide-eyed into space, Angel was just standing there observing everyone else, and Giles was looking furious.   
Buffy felt light-headed and a bit sad. Why would I be upset over his leaving, she asked herself. 'It has to be confusion, with the disappointment of not having anyone to spill all my trouble to, and to kick his ass if he interrupts me.' But that particular train of thought seemed horribly wrong now that he was gone.**  
**---

Dawn did her best to blink back tears. How could Spike just leave like that? It wasn't fair, she needed him. She needed him so much… he was the one who kept her in line, the one who made her see that what she was doing was wrong. Not that she always listened to him – but she didn't listen to anyone. Hormones, according to her principal, her mother and her teachers. Personality, according to her.  
Dawn understood that he had been offered a job, that he wanted to teach, but she couldn't help herself. And there was something else: the man she thought of as a real father had been lying to her for long time… Well, he had been keeping something from her, but that was the same thing. Giles had just fallen off his pedestal, and was now not much better than her real father. She didn't care for laws – enjoyed breaking them, actually – and was not pleased that Giles didn't trust them enough to let them in on the 'big secret of stereotypical witchcraft being real'.   
'This is too much of a shock right now, and that is not good. I have to pass five more exams, one of those deciding whether or not I pass the grade. Focus on that, Summers. His life isn't built around you and he has a right to go his own way. Keep that in mind and don't be too hard on him'.**  
**---

Captain Peroxide was gone? Xander would have never thought that Spike of all people would just leave. He had made Sunnydale his home and had always been excited about the unpredictable fights and near apocalypses that occurred so frequently. 'And he's left to teach. To teach! I don't believe he is going to teach. This is making my head hurt. I can't believe this, and I really need an aspirin. Yesterday morning would be too late. This has to be more than a pure shock headache,' Xander thought. He closed his mouth, but the facts caught up with him again, and his mouth fell open.**  
**---

'What kind of a name is 'Hogwarts'? I still can't believe that the other three agreed to call their school 'Hogwarts'. Helga came up with it, I remember that, but even Godric hated it. Salazar hated it, I hated it, and, hell, _Rowena_ hated it. Although she can't have hated it that much, or the bitch would have manipulated everyone to get her way, like she always did.  
That bitch, always so full of herself: "Hey, look, I'm Rowena Ravenclaw and I'm the best person in the world. You all are dumber than I am, and so you may drop down on your knees and worship the ground I walk upon. Everyone but Salazar that is, but that is because he's in love with me, and so must be on my level". I hate her. She's dead and I still hate her.

So Spike is going to teach at Hogwarts, is he? I'm sure he'll be a great teacher'.  
Anya wanted to have sex with Xander to get her mind off the subject of her older sister. Anya _needed_ to have sex with Xander to get her mind off the subject of her older sister.**  
**---

Willow thought about it all. There was another kind of magic… it was performed with wands. 'I wonder how I would fare against a witch or wizard in a duel,' she thought. 'An Empowered Wiccan… I like the sound of the words, it sounds regal and important and powerful. I don't need a wand, but my powers are far from under control. Although I do know that I'm powerful. But it can't be good to think about my magic that way. If the term 'Wiccan' applies not only to my beliefs but also to my powers, I can't just use it for everything I want to do.  
So Spike is going to teach at a school for youths who can use magic like that? I'll miss him, he was on my level, and I could really talk to him about things'.  
---

Real witches and wizards with real wands. It was strange, but it shouldn't surprise her: what else had been shocking in her life? 'Nearly everything,' Tara thought to herself. She thought about it. Giles and Spike were wizards. Her mother had always told her that wizard was a meaningless word that belonged in fairy tales. So it wasn't just a word used by those who weren't familiar with the Craft, and from the fairy tales, but an actual name for actual people. The vampire who had been in Sunnydale the past three days was a wizard as well. Whatever she might have been telling herself about being able to handle the shock, it was a big lie. Tara just sat down on the floor.   
---

'So, magic. It doesn't seem to be evil in general, but for members of the undead to have the powers?. Well, at least Hostile Seventeen is gone. And good to be rid of it, too. Not only is it a mindless animal, he has the wrong effect on these people. Befriending soulless beings and putting their lives in its hands. Animals, just animals.' Riley Finn would not miss the vampire, and the fact that magic and wand-wielding witches and wizards were real? It didn't impress him the slightest bit. Why should it?

~~~  
Spike looked at the timetables for the trains going to Hogsmeade on platform 9¾. Really, it just made perfect sense that he had missed the last train that day, and that the next one would be leaving at ten o'clock tomorrow. Annoyed, he walked to the Leaky Cauldron and booked a room for the night. He should have known that something like this would happen.

Ringing coming from his leather pants caught his attention. He picked up the cell phone and recognized his grandsire's number. "Angel?"  
"No, this is Giles."  
"Haven't I said enough times that I am not speaking to you?" he sighed.   
"I don't really think that your opinion matters much. After all, my authority—"  
"Were you ever a Death-Eater?"  
"No. Where did you get that idea?"  
"A Nazi in a past life?"  
"Spike, listen to me."  
"No, I won't listen to you. If you want me to listen, put Angel on the phone."  
"Very well, then".  
~~~

Giles sighed and handed the phone to Angel. "He says he'll only speak to you".  
Angel took the phone and thought that if all purebloods thought like this, maybe it wasn't so bad being a halfblood. "Giles wants you to listen to him."  
"I don't want to listen to him."  
Angel sighed and tried again. "If we hadn't told them, would you have sent them anything about the existence of the Wizarding World?"  
Angel could hear Spike snort. "Do you know me at all?" the blond asked indignantly.   
"He would have told them himself," Angel confirmed. "What are we supposed to tell the Ministry? Giles wants to know if it's 'This very immature and irresponsible vampire left without telling me, forcing me to tell the Muggles about our world?'" Angel said. Why did he have to be the one in the middle of this?  
"That's how he feels it is, that's what he says. Be sure to add that if he hadn't, there would have been moving pictures coming their way."  
"I don't believe you," Angel said and shook his head.   
"That's because you're still having a problem with being half-Muggle," Spike said knowingly.   
"Don't start about that," Angel warned. His parentage was something he did not want to discuss.   
"Good night, Angel".  
~~~

Spike disconnected with a smirk. Even from halfway across the globe, he could get on Angel's nerves. Although he had to admit that bringing up the one thing that actually hurt Angel was low. On the other hand, why did he care? But he had a train to catch, and needed to have an excuse for not answering any calls. Giles' bossiness was also increasingly annoying Spike; it wasn't just Malfoy-pride or being bossed around by a Watcher. It was mostly the fact that Giles was acting like a monarch or a dictator. 'Is there even a difference?' he wondered, amused.  
~~~

"Everyone out. I have to talk to Angel in private."  
Angel frowned, but he didn't say anything. It wouldn't help, anyway.   
"But Giles..." Willow began.   
"Come on, Will, let's go. It's obvious we're not wanted here," Buffy said, dragging her best friend out the door. The others followed suit.  
After the last Scoobies had left, Giles turned to Angel, "Did you know he was a Malfoy?"  
"No, I just knew he was a pureblood. Come to think of it, he always called himself wizard born."  
"Wizard born, of course…" Giles muttered something else, but Angel couldn't make out any of the words.   
"What exactly is wrong with him being a Malfoy?" Angel asked, and hoped that he had interpreted Giles' tone correctly.   
"Everything. From powers, to behaviour, to looks."  
'Okaaay…' Angel thought, 'this has to be a Council thing'. "But Spike isn't blond."  
"You can't know that. But enough of that. Tonight or tomorrow, at best, there will be an enforcer coming this way. Do you want to join me in getting drunk?"  
"Oh, gladly. But I have to call Cordelia first," he said.   
"The telephone is on the counter. I'll go and get the alcohol."  
Angel approached the telephone as though it would bite him. Well, maybe not the telephone itself, but the person on the other side definitely would. Maybe Gunn or Wesley would pick it up? 'Who are you trying to fool? It's gonna be Cordelia, so you might as well pick that up and be in less danger when you go back to LA'. "Hi, Cordy, it's Angel?"  
"_Where the hell__ are you? Does this so-called emergency take a week to fight? What were you thinking just leaving with a weak-ass excuse about Giles and Sunnydale? Are you even in Sunnydale right now? When are you coming home, Angel? When?"_ Angel had to hold the receiver away from his ear to hear what she was saying.   
"Sunnydale, no; Giles made me do it; yes, tomorrow, and, tomorrow," he answered.   
"_Giles made you? Angel, that one's even lamer,_" she yelled.   
"Look, Cordy, I'm sorry. I'll be back tomorrow night."  
"Fine. You better be," Cordelia threatened.

Giles returned with several bottles, and sat down at the table. Angel shrugged and joined him. Giles opened the first bottle, and drank a quarter of it in one long gulp. Angel nearly fell off of his seat in surprise. Giles handed him the bottle and Angel drank some. He thought he heard Giles say something like 'weakling', but saw that he was finishing the bottle, fast, and couldn't have said anything. This seriously wasn't normal.  
~~~

Anya opened the door angrily. The least Giles could have done was lock the damn thing. In Sunnydale, it was never safe to leave a door unlocked, especially not the door to the magic shop. "Giles? Oh, man."  
"What is it, Ahn?" Xander asked from behind her. "Oh."  
Giles was on the table, out cold. Angel was in the same condition; only he was lying on the floor. "I've always wanted to do this and no power on this earth is going to stop me from doing it," he said and grabbed two buckets. "Who's with me?"  
Dawn raised her hand and together they went to the bathrooms behind the training room.

"Wakey, wakey!" the two grinned, and emptied the buckets over the heads of the souled vampire and the Watcher.   
"I can't be day yet," Giles muttered.   
"Oh, but it is," Dawn smirked.  
Angel bolted upright and seemed to be out of breath. "You're a vampire, Dead-Boy, you don't breathe."  
"I wasn't asking you, Harris," Angel said and shook his head.   
He preferred a blinding headache to the images he had been seeing. "Ow…"

"I'd like to stay and see you with your headaches, but I have a History of Art exam to ace," Dawn said and left the shop.   
"Did just Dawn say what I think she said or am I delusional?" Angel wondered out loud.   
"Both".  
~~~ 

Joyce Summers was sitting on her couch, with a cup of her famous cocoa. Whatever therapeutic effects it had on others, they didn't apply to her. She was too worried about her girls, and she wished she knew what to do with them. While they'd never been the best of friends, their recent behavior exceeded every past fight they had had. Not only because they had been at this since May, but also because they were at the verge of hurling things at each other. And while Joyce had thrown a few things at her brother and her friends when she was young, harmful intentions had never played any part in it.  
The telephone was ringing, but Joyce didn't answer. If it was important the caller would leave a message.   
"Missus Summers, are you there? This is Kris, if you're at home, could you pick up, please?"  
Joyce sighed and picked up the phone, "Yes, Kristina, I'm here. What is it?"  
"Well, before I can take my final examinations I have to do some assignments on my own, but also some under supervision from a professional enforcer, so—"  
"Kristina, I'm retired," Joyce said sternly.   
"Yes, I know that. But they actually said that I should ask you."  
"Who said so? And for that matter, since when was supervision necessary?"  
"The commissioner said so."  
"You wouldn't be talking about my old friend Malus Fids, would you? Alright, I'll help you. Where are you now?"  
"I'm at the charred remains of a building."  
"Do you think you can find the house?"  
"1630 Revello Drive, right?"  
"Yes."  
"I'll find it. I'll be in there in a few minutes. Do you still make your magic cocoa?"  
"There'll be a nice mug with your name on it when you get here."  
"Buffy _did_ steal my mug!" Kristina shouted indignantly.   
"Oh, you and Buffy can talk it out. Unless of course you, Buffy and Dawn end up at each others' throats for absolutely no reason," Joyce muttered.   
"Alright, I'll be there soon."

Joyce opened the door to a smiling Kristina Raco. "You changed your hairdo," Joyce observed.   
And indeed, Kristina now had shoulder length black hair with blue strands that stuck out in every direction. "It became too difficult to keep dyeing it that purple," Kristina shrugged.   
"And far too expensive, I'd guess," Joyce remarked, and pulled Kristina into a tight embrace.   
"Aunt Joyce, I have this habit of needing to breathe," Kristina said with a sparkle in her eyes.   
"Did you get contacts? Your eyes are way too blue."  
"They match my hair," Kristina protested weakly.   
"Your real eye-color matches your hair. This makes you look like a vain movie-star," Joyce said, smiling.  
Joyce led Kristina to the couch, and went to the kitchen to pour her some of her hot chocolate. "Here you are, Kristina."  
"Thank you, Aunty Joyce."  
"Just call me Joyce. You're almost twenty-four years old, after all."

Joyce stared at the purple van in front of her house. "Well, I see that thing is still purple."  
"It was your children who helped me paint it."  
"Just teasing you."  
Joyce climbed into the van and slammed her door shut. "So, how does this thing drive?"  
~~~

Angel and Giles were sitting at the table. Giles was insisting that they devise a strategy to avoid a fine, but all Angel was interested in was getting rid of his headache. "Angel, w—"  
"Why can't we just say what Spike suggested?" Angel said and cast a longing look at the door to the training room.   
"No one in their right mind would believe us," Giles said with a tone that allowed no arguing.  
Angel decided on another strategy, "If you're not going to listen to me, why are you even asking me?"  
When that didn't work either, Angel leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. "For once I agree with Spike. We could just tell the damn truth," he muttered.

---  
Anya was watching the two with interest. Was it so difficult just to say what you meant to say? Anya put more faith into the principle of freedom of speech than she did in her gods. Anything not to be like her sister, who was a master of deceit, and who had lied her way through her entire life. The only thing she was holding Spike responsible for was making her remember her sister. Being the sister of the 'great' Rowena wasn't something Anya was particularly proud of.  
---

Kris opened the door, but saw Joyce hesitate. She could guess what was causing that hesitation, as they had already had this conversation on the way. Kris could respect the views of others, and she was training to be an agent of the law. "Are you coming?"  
"Are Buffy and Dawn in there?"  
Kris looked inside. "Yes, they are. Why are you asking?"  
"Are they fighting?"  
Kris looked closer. They were discussing something, but they weren't arguing. "They're just talking."  
"Then I'm coming."

Kris looked around in wonder. There were more herbs here than in the average apothecary in Los Angeles, and it was full of Wiccan items she'd only heard of in school. She picked up a statue of Ceres and inspected it.   
"No touching unless you're buying it, and that one I've promised to give to a friend," a brunette said from behind her.   
"It's alright, Anya, she's with me. Is Mister Giles anywhere near here?"  
"He's at the table going over things to tell—oh, that would be you, wouldn't it?"  
---

Giles looked at the young woman standing between Anya and Joyce in annoyance. He hadn't yet come up with a plausible explanation for telling the Muggles, but maybe he could work with the fact that Joyce knew Spike.   
"You know why we're here," Joyce said simply and folded her arms.  
The Enforcer who was with Joyce tried to say something, but Joyce cut her off. "I don't really care if you've told the others. Anya is a witch herself, and so Xander can know. Willow and Tara are high-level EW's. But you told my daughters, and I had good reasons for not telling them."  
"It's all Spike's fault, really," Giles said.  
Joyce raised an eyebrow. "I would like to hear his side, then."  
Giles sighed and took Angel's cell-phone off the table. "Call him. You'll find he's going to verify what I just said."  
"Are _any_ of you considering that I'm the one who isn't calling anyone, but still has to pay for trans-Atlantic calls here?" Angel interjected.  
Giles decided it was better to ignore him.  
---

Spike sighed, and took his cell-phone out of his pocket again. "Who is it now?"  
"It's Joyce Summers. I've been told you're the reason my daughters know about the Wizarding World."  
"If you're a witch, why weren't they told in the first place?" he asked irritably. Too many people were calling him about this.   
"It's a promise I made to Hank when Buffy was born."  
"Yes, I'm the cause of that. I was invited to teach at Hogwarts, and I would have sent each and every one of them – the Soldier Brat excluded, the girl who left for LA included – a letter with moving pictures and a nice description of the Wizarding World."  
"Fine, but you're in luck, Spike. I like you, and all of them may know, technically, so there won't be any memory spell done on them."  
"Can I talk to Dawn?"

"So totally not repeating the year, and definitely gonna pass math speaking."  
"You're in a good mood," Spike said with a smile.   
"I am. I know I got everything right on my History of Art exam. Thanks for finding my notes, by the way."  
"You're welcome. I just wanted to know if things between you and Buffy have improved since I left."  
"Still going steadily downhill."  
Spike sighed and thought about it. The only solution he could see wasn't really a solution, only a buffer between the siblings. "You could stay with someone else over the summer. Maybe that will help to solve the problem, if only the tiniest bit."  
"The pun is excused. I'll ask Mom and Anya."

Spike waited for Dawn to come back on the line. "Both Mom and Anya say it's fine. Buffy agreed as well, and that means you have to shut up about Xander."  
"All right. But promise me that you two will try to work it all out," he said.   
"We'll try, with a lot of emphasis on the 'trying'."  
"Good luck, Little Bit."  
The other teacher on her way back to the castle stared at him. "Having family problems?"  
"It's not my family, but I'm close to them," he admitted.   
"I hope they'll work it out."  
"They will eventually, I'm just not certain how long that's going to take," he said.  
---

Dawn was throwing clothes into a suitcase she'd found beneath the bedclothes. Anya was standing in the doorway holding a bag that contained the books and notes Dawn still needed for her exams. "Our apartment is a five minute drive and a seven minute walk away from your house. You don't have to bring the entire room," Anya said impatiently.  
The suitcase was more than full anyway, so Dawn closed it. "Movie renting time then?"  
Anya smiled. "Movie renting time. But also don't-sneak-out-of-the-house-tonight-and-study-for-that-exam time."  
---

Spike walked through the Hogwarts gates, and stared at the magnificent castle. He'd last seen it over a century ago, but it was still on the list of the top ten most beautiful buildings he'd ever seen. Even from as relatively far away as he was, he could see the architectural wonders of its structure. It was a fine day, and he didn't mind the walk. Spike lit a cigarette, and looked around. Not much had changed since he'd been here last.  
When he arrived at the castle itself, there was someone standing outside with a foul look on his face. "I take it you are the new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher?"  
Spike blew the smoke into the man's face and answered. "Do they not teach you manners anymore?"  
I'm far older than you are, Spike thought. "You're standing in my way. If you would let me through?"  
The man stepped aside, and Spike entered the castle.  
***

Reviews are greatly appreciated. Chapter two will be up between now and next month. Yes, I'm breaking my own rule. It's already finished, but it still needs to be bèta'd and re-read several thousand times for me to filter out the too ridiculous things – like I didn't do with StS chapter six. You might remember it as being full of OoC Draco Malfoy and Madam Pomfrey.


	3. More Than a Fraction Too Much Friction

Destined for Good  
part one: Bridges between the Worlds  
chapter two: More than A _Fraction_ too Much Friction

**_=Sunnydale: Anya and Xander's apartment July seventh=_**

Anya turned off the television and stood in her guest's line of sight. "You were going to work on your math, remember?"  
Dawn sighed, took the books from Anya, and went over a new problem. She had tried to explain that she understood it by now, but no one would listen. "You do realize I can cite these chapters from memory by now, don't you?"

"I didn't think this up. If you want to blame someone, blame your mother," Anya said.   
"I know that, Ahn, but everyone's freaking out," Dawn complained.   
"How about some breakfast before the big bad exams, hmm?"

Dawn didn't tell Anya that she hadn't been planning to stay for her physics exam and followed her to the kitchen. Her principal had decided that if she would get a B or higher in math, she would pass, whether or not she had made the rest of the exams. "Thanks for letting me stay at your house, Anya."

"It's just as much a favor to you as it is to the rest of us, believe me," Anya said.  
Dawn laughed, but Anya wasn't joining in. "You weren't kidding, were you?" she asked.   
"No," Anya said seriously.  
~~~

  
Dawn looked around again to make sure that no one had seen her fight with the demons, and when she was certain no one was looking, quickly put her gladius sword back in to her backpack. She broke into a run while trying to put on her coat to hide the gashes in her shirt. New evils were always so inconsiderate, breaking the unspoken rules between the Scooby Gang and the Evils of Sunnydale: fighting is done at night. And then to go and attack me on the one day I can't be late for school, she thought angrily.

Dawn pushed the door open and marched down the hall quickly. She knocked on the door and waited for the invigilator to acknowledge the knock. "I'm supposing that's you, Summers?" the cutting voice of Laetitia Daniels said.

Dawn cringed; she'd forgotten that her German teacher would be supervising the math exam. "Yes, it's me," she said through the door.   
"You're too late; we've already begun," Daniels said, in a tone that meant the matter couldn't be discussed.

I'll just go talk to the principal then, Dawn thought and stalked off. Dawn had been given permission to discuss anything she wanted at any time with the principle, whom she thought to be an old school friend of her mother's. She opened the door and walked into the principal's office.   
"Correct me if I'm wrong, Dawn, but aren't you supposed to be working on a very important math exam?" Sam asked, staring at her from behind the desk. Dawn explained why Daniels wouldn't let her in and decided to push her luck and ask if she could do the exam in Sam's office.

"Daniels? Someone must have made a mistake when putting together the timetables; I was wondering why I wasn't on the list to oversee you young people. Fine, you can work on it here, if you promise not to do anything to Laetitia for not letting you in."

Dawn sighed and sat down at the little table in the corner. "I'll get your exam from Laetitia. Don't you go anywhere," Sam said and closed the door behind her. When Sam was gone, Dawn danced through the room.

"Of course, you realize you'll be doing your physics exam in here too, don't you?" Sam said when she got back and placed to stacks of paper on the table. Dawn nodded and looked through the physics exam.   
"Piece of cake," she said. Dawn had been reading a book about magic and science that covered all this for the past week.

"I don't care which one you do first, or if you just write 'I don't have to do this' on your physics exam; so long as you do the math and have something written on your physics exam."  
Dawn considered not doing her physics exam, but decided that while she was at it she might as well just ace it.

Seventy minutes later, Dawn stood up and handed the two exams to Sam. "I finished them both," she said and walked out. 

"Dawn, wait just a minute!" Sam called after her.   
Dawn turned around and waited. "I want to see you here Monday."  
Dawn shrugged but nodded, and then she walked away. She had a German exam that Monday, and Dawn had spent every summer in Germany when her parents were still together. She wouldn't miss that one for the world. Missing out when she finally had a chance to show Daniels a piece of her mind? Hardly. She couldn't think of anything better that moment.   
~~~

Dawn looked at herself in the mirror. The white leather suited her, but the damn thing cost over three hundred dollars, and Dawn just wasn't going to pay that much for a coat, no matter how beautiful it was or how much money she had. Dawn took it off, and brushed her hand over the tag. To her surprise, it came loose. Dawn smirked and threw it into a bystander's purse, put on the coat again and walked out of the store. 

The security guard stopped the unfortunate woman who had received the tag of Dawn's new coat when she tried to walk away. Dawn stayed behind to see if there would be a scene when it was proved that the woman hadn't done anything, but she was disappointed. The brunette shrugged and walked on.

Ten minutes later, in another store, Dawn pulled her hair over her shoulders and examined the top. She liked it, even if Buffy was going to kill her because it was so short. She held up her old top and examined it. Six parallel gashes graced the back. "Oops," Dawn whispered and quickly shrugged on her coat.

The teenager tore out of the store, causing the alarms to go off immediately. However, Dawn was long gone by the time the store clerk made it outside. "It's hard to catch up on a Summers in a hurry," Dawn smirked and zigzagged out of the way of an old lady with a dog.  
---

She threw open the door and collided chin-first with Buffy's head. "Watch it, Buffy!"  
"You're the tall one, you watch your step," Buffy shot back.  
Willow shook her head and made a separating motion with her hands: "Separate."  
Anya could see where this was going and hurriedly whispered a spell to protect her products against flying Summers.

When the two sisters had calmed down enough and their friends were holding them back to prevent any further fights, Dawn explained the situation to her sister. Buffy and Xander grabbed two handfuls of weapons and left to kill the remaining demons.

Anya put an arm around Dawn. "You and I are going to go home, and then I'm going to tell you a little story."  
---

Anya sat down on the couch and took a few deep breaths. If she refused to acknowledge her past, Rowena would still have won. "Listen carefully, because I'm not going to repeat anything," Anya said. Dawn nodded and leaned forward.   
"The school where Spike is going to be teaching was founded by my sister, Rowena Ravenclaw, and her friends. There were four Founders, Rowena, Salazar Slytherin, Helga Hufflepuff, and Godric Gryffindor. Out of the four of them, Godric was the oldest. Helga came after him, a year younger than he was; then came Rowena at ten years younger than Godric; and then Salazar, a year younger than Rowena. Edrin Slytherin and I were both another decade younger than Salazar… are you still with me?"

Dawn nodded "Four Founders; two little sisters. Oldest one: Godric Gryffindor. Second oldest: Helga Hufflepuff, one year younger than Gryffindor. Second youngest: Rowena Ravenclaw, ten years younger than Gryffindor. Youngest one: Salazar Slytherin, eleven years younger than Gryffindor. And you and Edrin Slytherin were ten years younger than Slytherin, and twenty-one years younger than Gryffindor."

"Exactly. Now, after Rowena's birth, my mother could not have children anymore, even if she wanted to very badly. She had a Veela friend, though, who offered to carry a child. I technically have two mothers and one father, so I'm one-third Veela. Rowena always used to hold that over my head as a reason why I wasn't really her sister but some sort of freak instead. Edrin was my best friend, closely followed by Salazar. Though you're gonna have to give me some time to separate truth from myths spun by my lovely manipulating sister. How much have you already read about Hogwarts?"

"The main opinion is Slytherin is for evil Watcher-ly and manipulating types; Hufflepuff for the kind and hardworking souls; Ravenclaw is for the smart ones; and Gryffindor is for the good and brave," Dawn said, her tone indicating that she didn't need Anya's explanations to doubt the truth in those theories.

"Well, I'll start with Salazar. He was a nice guy, kind and gentle; and he definitely wasn't anti-muggle. Salazar had black hair, unlike what everyone thinks, and light brown eyes that always used to sparkle with joy. And he was tall, he was really tall. He…" Anya continued on for quite a while, speaking fondly of the man everyone thought of as a homicidal maniac.  
"Helga Hufflepuff was a short, muscled warrior, with the strangest eyes… they were such a light brown they were almost yellow, and she must have had a thousand hair colors. She was a nice woman, but she did have some nasty drinking habits; and was short with dark blond hair and soft grey eyes. I've never really liked her, although I don't know why. She was always a fair person, but she never saw Rowena as… what she really was. Her empathy couldn't stretch as far as that." Anya was silent for a while, thinking. "If I ever met her again, I would thank her for just being herself, I think.  
"Godric had wild red hair and dark brown eyes and he was crazy about gardening. He was a herbologist, and a damn good one at that. He was a nice enough guy. There's really not a lot more about him, but that's not to say he was boring.  
"Last and also least favorite in my opinion, is my sister. Rowena had beautiful brown hair, (she always said it was bronze), and had deep blue eyes. Not deep as in dark, like Spike's; but deep as in bright. Have you ever seen the sky at its deepest blue? Her eyes were that color. She was anything but sweet and loving though." Anya spoke bitterly, and a frown creased her forehead. "Rowena was the worst manipulator I've ever met; and don't forget I've been a Vengeance Demon for over a millennium. I've seen my share of manipulators. You got it so far?"

"I think I do," Dawn said quickly. She wanted Anya to continue with her story.

"Yeah. When I was thirteen, the four of them started to make plans for a school of magic. The plans had always been there, but it was nothing solid and they'd just been kidding around. They planned to build a huge castle and to create the best school of magic there was in that time. They intended to become better that the schools in Asia, North Africa and East-Europe, schools that had been around since the Egyptian times at least. But, Helga said it right: A school is only as good as its teachers. And the teachers they had in mind just happened to be the best there were. Rowena would teach Charms; Salazar was going to teach Transfiguration; Godric would teach Herbology; and Helga was going to teach History of Magic. They were hoping Edrin would agree to be a Divinations teacher and that I'd teach Potions. The rest of the staff they'd hire when needed." Anya gave a sad smile, something Dawn wouldn't think she was capable of.

"Unfortunately, Rowena went out hunting six months later and accidentally shot Edrin in the chest. Edrin nearly died and left for the European mainland. No one knows what happened to her, and I'm the only one who even remembers her. Rowena effectively wrote her out of history. That same year, she married Salazar. Salazar stopped talking to anyone about everything but the school and he seemed almost zombie-like to me.  
Three years later, 'Hogwarts' opened for students. None came from the mainland. But no matter what, the school was huge and its staff magnificent. I taught Potions there for three years, even if I was only sixteen. O—"

"What year are we talking about?" Dawn interrupted, trying to picture a year with the information.

"I was born in 859, so I was nineteen in 878. We're talking 878. I was with a guy back then, a terrible loser now I think about it. His name was Olaf, but he's a troll now. He cheated on me with a Swedish bar matron called Rannveig, and I turned him into a troll. Then I had a brief thing with Gryffindor's son, and when he left… let's just say D'Hoffryn took me to Arashmahar and offered to make me a Vengeance Demon."

"The rest is history, so to speak. Right?" Dawn asked with a grin. She'd been hoping for details about what had happened with Gryffindor's son, but if Anya wasn't comfortable talking about, she wasn't going to push.   
"Uhuh."  
---

"Honey?" Anya turned around to see Xander standing in the doorway with a cut just above his eyebrow.   
"Did you and Buffy kill the demons?" she asked, hugging Xander.   
"Yeah. Damage suffered was not because of the demons but because of some thorn bushes we hid in to take them out," Xander smiled.

Anya dragged him to the couch and made him sit down. "We're having pizza. Dawn and I picked the things we didn't like for you."  
"You're forgiven by the fact that I _like_ everything you _don't_ like on a pizza," Xander said, giving Anya a quick kiss on the cheek.  
Dawn came in with three huge pizza boxes and dealt them out. She took a slice and opened her mouth, but Xander beat her to the talking. "You're not singing your ode to anchovies in this house," he said sternly.

Dawn closed her mouth again and was obviously singing her anchovies song in her head. "It's just a song," she muttered, chewing on the pizza.   
"It's a song about anchovies that you've been singing for years and years and years," Xander said, quite plainly annoyed.  
"But it's just a song!"  
"Xander's right, you know. I've known you for a year and I can't stand it."

Later that night, when Dawn had been sent to her bedroom, so that Xander and Anya could have some quality time together, Xander and Anya were lying on the couch in each other's arms.   
"I've got a story to tell you," Anya whispered and leaned into Xander's embrace, "just a warning so you know what I'll do if you leave me."  
"Are you kidding?"  
"A little. Now shut up and let me tell it. When I was young…"  
~~~

Kris, Joyce and Buffy were sitting at the table. "Explain to me again why Aury isn't here?" Kris said, her hands cupped protectively over her mug.   
"You can let go of the mug, Kris, I'm not gonna steal it again," Buffy pouted, trying to change the subject to something that hadn't been brought up every day for the past week.   
"Dawn isn't here because it seemed better to all of us that she and Buffy were kept apart, so that no one gets hurt," Joyce said with a glare in Buffy's direction.  
Buffy held up her hands to show she wasn't going to get involved in another argument with her mother about her behavior. She'd been having enough of those over the past two months.

"I don't understand. Why are things so bad between them that they can't live in one house together?" Kris said, still not understanding the problems even if they had been explained to her numerous times by numerous people over the past few days.  
"Your guess is as good as ours," Joyce said, shooting another glare in Buffy's direction.

"Ellizabuffy? How about you show me the mall in this town?" Kris said, after they finished breakfast.  
"Sure, Kris. If you stop saying that, of course," Buffy tried hopefully.   
"Forget it, Buff. I'm not gonna stop calling you that," she said with a small smile.  
"B, Ellizabuffy, Annie, why can't anyone call me things I like to hear?" Buffy complained laughing, and grabbed her wallet off her bed.   
"You get so easily upset, sweetie, that's why," Kris said smiling. Buffy grumbled something vaguely based on words and the two left the house together.  
~~~

"I can do it!" Dawn angrily snapped at her mother, who was giving her a third degree in German.   
"Really?" Joyce asked sceptically, raising a questioning eyebrow.  
"Yes, really," Dawn sighed. "And I've got the feeling that this is all about Buffy and me."  
"It isn't."  
"Yes, it is. I can tell you what is says, letter by letter even. I've memorized the entire book. You know that." Dawn grumbled sullen and started folding the pages of her French textbook.  
"Don't do that," Joyce snapped, going back to English.  
Dawn smirked in triumph and put her school things away. She took out a book Anya had given her at breakfast, 'Amas Elter' by someone named Edrin Chase. Anya hadn't known the answer to both Dawn's questions, 'Is she related to Edrin?' and, 'Is she related to Cordy?'. Anya had told her that no one knew where Edrin had gone, and that as far as she knew, Cordelia was simply a Muggle with that particular last name.  
~~~

"What do you know?" Dawn hissed at Buffy. The two sisters were standing opposite one another and were both already in a fighting stance. None of the Scoobies moved to stop them, knowing that it wasn't going to do much good. If they managed to separate the sisters at all, they would have been back at each other's throats in a fraction of a second.   
"Let me ask you the same question," Buffy yelled.  
It seemed that Buffy's eyes were becoming greyer and that her irises were slowly expanding. Dawn's eyes showed the same thing, only were her eyes like heating metal, changing from their normal blue to red, to white. Anya caught on to what was going on and once more drew up protective barriers around the shop, herself and Xander. Willow and Tara could feel Anya's magic, joined hands, and did the same thing. Although they didn't know exactly what was happening, they could feel raw power rippling through the Magic Box.  
An unexpected gust of wind suddenly slammed Dawn backwards, and Buffy found herself surrounded by a ring of flames. Buffy's eyes looked like moving mist, Dawn's like nearly molten metal.

The sisters tore into each other, wind blowing through the shop and sparks and bouncing off the energy barriers. There was a miniature end of the world going on right inside the shop, but the only things it was harming were Buffy, Dawn, and their clothing.

"That's enough," Joyce' voice cut through the shop, and a gust blew the two apart. Buffy had burn marks on her face and her nose seemed to be broken. Dawn sported bruises from where 'bullets' of wind had hit her.  
Anya judged the situation to be under control and dropped the barrier. Joyce collected her daughters, almost threw Dawn into Anya's arms, and dragged Buffy out of the shop.  
Anya and Xander brought Dawn to their apartment and her temporary bedroom, and then called Joyce for instructions.

"Don't let her out of the house, understood?" Joyce ordered.   
"But they're hurt!" Anya protested.   
"They'll heal. You've seen them at it, haven't you? One of our ancestors is a Pyros warrior, my father is the King Zephyr, so you see, they're both Nymphén. We heal quickly. Buffy's even a Slayer," Joyce said. There wasn't even a trace of worry in her voice.  
Anya sighed and gave in. "Fine. We won't let her out."

Anya turned to Xander and explained the situation to him, Nymphén parts and all. Xander wasn't happy with it either, but they both realized they weren't parents and that Joyce probably knew best. "I'm more worried about what she's going to do to our apartment," Xander muttered.  
~~~

"Mom! Open the door!" Buffy yelled angrily.   
"Forget it, Buffy," Joyce said from the stairs.  
Buffy sat down on her bed and picked up her stuffed pig. "Oh Mister Gordo, what am I gonna do?" Mr. Gordo just stared at her.  
She sighed and threw Mister Gordo against the door, and sulkily turned on the radio. 'Tainted Love' by Soft Cell blasted out of her speakers. Buffy quickly turned down the volume and waited for her ears to stop ringing. 

It can't have been my fault that he left, she thought sadly. Now she had some perspective on the past few months, she hoped she'd be lucky enough to be on the receiving end of one of the blond's piercing glares.

It seemed like her mother had made up her mind, and that meant she'd be enjoying her own company for a while. She picked up Mister Gordo at the door and the book she'd hurled at the window earlier (instead of going through like it should've, it had bounced back and nearly hit her in the head) and set them both on her bed. Sighing, she cleared her desk of weapons, stray make-up items and textbooks. Buffy turned up the volume of the radio very slightly and took her book, continuing where she'd stopped the previous night.  
~~~

"Why won't you let me get out of my room?" Dawn complained furiously.  
Anya sighed and looked at Xander. "Don't give me the 'you-talk-to-her' look," he warned. Anya however was not impressed and Xander gave in.   
"Because your mother was very clear about a certain _Dawn: after this _fight_ she had with her sister_, Buffy, _she was _not to leave her room_."  
"Ugh," Dawn said and punched the door._

"Leave my door alone," Anya ordered, brushing a hand over it when Xander's back was turned (better to be safe than sorry, after all).  
She and Xander moved to the kitchen. Dawn's ranting could be heard as if the brunette were standing right beside them, so Anya suggested going out to eat at the Bronze. Xander agreed without hesitation, and quietly the two left the house.  
---

Dawn yelled on for an hour before she realized there was no one in the house anymore. Sighing, she turned on the radio and under a song by a punk-rock group she didn't know the name of, hung up her dartboard and put a picture of Riley up on the board. Dawn collected her darts and spent the next three hours throwing holes into her sister's boyfriend, several of her teachers and Anne Adrian.

During those three hours, the music slowly picked up decibels, and by eleven o'clock there was a solid wall of heavy bass tones and screamed lyrics blasting out of Dawn's room. The teen was singing along to the songs in German, sometimes in French and a few times – when she heard a good one – in English.

Around midnight, Dawn turned down the volume a little and started picking at the loose threads on the Iron Maiden patch on her backpack. She was planning to superglue it to Anne's perfectly white coat, along with a nice sticker from Greenpeace about polluters.  
~~~

Buffy woke up from the bright light streaming into her face and squeezed her eyes shut. She rolled over to be outside of the beam of light, but found herself on the floor instead. "Great," she muttered, getting up. 

Buffy tried the door, which to her surprise opened. There was a letter from her mother on the door. "Buffy, Kristina and I are going to San Francisco for the day. There's lunch and dinner in the fridge, all you have to do is put it in the microwave. Don't even bother trying to get out of the house, you can't. There's a chance I won't be back until Monday. Behave yourself and leave the house alone. It hasn't done anything wrong. Mom," she read, and crumpled up the Post-It Note.

"Whatever," she said. Buffy grabbed her book again and went to the bathroom. She filled the bathtub, and threw a few bottles of bath foam, fragrant oils and salts into the tub. 

Hurriedly she ran down the stairs and took two cartons of Ben & Jerry's out of the freezer. Buffy raced back upstairs and stepped into the full-length basin meant for those who wanted to read in a bath. 

Buffy loved this bathtub. You could read in it but at the same time, it was twelve foot long, nine foot wide and seven foot deep. "Gee, I wonder how much this is gonna cost Mom," she said sarcastically.  
Her mother was always telling them how expensive completely filling the tub was. She was right, of course, but both Buffy and Dawn knew that Joyce could afford filling it once every hour, all year long easily. 

Well, maybe not that. That was thousands of gallons each day. But definitely often. Buffy opened the first carton and sighed happily. She was alone in the house, taking a bath with a good book and the best ice cream in the world. This was a piece of heaven on earth. Who was she to complain?  
~~~

Dawn munched on her cornflakes and imagined the sound to be that of an avalanche, earthquake, or otherwise very unpleasant natural phenomenon crushing one Riley Finn. Anya and Xander had left fifteen minutes ago for some kind of festivity regarding a Veela feast or something.  
She guessed by the looks Anya had been giving Xander that it had something to do with sex. Knowing she had the choice between studying for a Chemistry exam she knew by heart and could write down in Russian if necessary (not that Dawn could speak, read or write Russian, but given a dictionary and a few hours, she could), look into her German textbook and correct the mistakes, perforate Riley some more, or reading through Anya's books, it wasn't hard to pick an activity.

Dawn walked into Anya and Xander's bathroom and searched underneath the bed. People could be so predictable sometimes. There were three crates full of books under Anya's side of the bed. Dawn pulled out the first one. They were all written in another alphabet and language, by the looks of it made by better presses than ordinary human ones.

The second crate contained books like the Kama Sutra, and again most were written in that foreign alphabet. They were far too graphical to even open. Just thinking about it made her blush.  
In a fit of puberty, she put one book under her shirt and pulled out the third crate.

That one contained many books about Potions, but at least they were written in English – archaic English, but English. Dawn took out the books about Potions to see what lay beneath them. "Written in English, check; about Veela, also check," Dawn said triumphantly.

She went back to her room and put the books on her bed, and shoved the one under her shirt into her pillowcase. Dawn opened the first one and started reading.

A ringing phone broke Dawn's concentration and she dug out her cell phone. "Dawn Summers," she said moodily.   
"Not in such a good mood anymore?" Spike asked.   
"Spike! No, it's just … eh …" Dawn searched for the right words to describe the latest problem in the series of fiascos between her and Buffy over the past two months.   
"It's what?" Spike asked suspiciously.   
"Is there anything you don't notice?" she asked.   
"Don't change the subject, Dawn."  
"I guess not," she answered her own question, "but you called me by my real name, so you must be serious."

"What happened between you and Buffy?" Spike pressed on.  
Damn, Dawn thought, now I'm gonna have to tell him. "We fought."  
"That's nothing new."  
"For real. Buffy made wind blow through the shop and I made fire from my hands. And I broke her nose," Dawn said, by nature excited by any kind of fight.

"_What_?"  
"Eh…" Dawn was speechless again, and was drawing little circles on her sheets with her fingers, "nothing?"  
"Nice try, Bit. I'm going to have a little talk with your mother about that later. But the reason I called was to ask you to keep me updated on the goings on in Sunnyhell every Saturday, s—"  
"It's Sunday today," Dawn interjected.

"So?"  
"Just saying," she said, shrugging.  
"Bit, can you keep me informed, yes or no?"  
"Sure," Dawn said.   
"I'll call you every Saturday around noon," Spike said.   
"Your noon or mine?"  
Spike sighed and said: "Your noon. And don't even start. Noon in California. I'll speak to you next week then."

Dawn put the phone away and was soon engrossed in the book again.  
~~~

Spike sighed and shook his head to get rid of the last fragments of the dream that were still floating about in his mind. The word nightmare didn't even begin to describe it.  
He held a hand to his head and leaned against the table. Spike took a few deep breaths and tried to banish the strange images from his mind. It wasn't helping any.

He had to lean against a wall to keep his balance. There was a blinding flash of light. When his eyes had adjusted to the sudden darkness, he could see he was in a dungeon of sorts. Torches were suspended on the walls six feet above the floor. Cardia was standing in the middle of the room. "Car?" he whispered softly, not daring to take his eyes off her.  
"Of course it's me, who else could it be?" Cardia smiled.  
The torches made her hair look like strands of gold.   
"Someone less dead?" he suggested.

Cardia threw her head back and laughed merrily. That was something he was hoping to see the current Slayer do anytime soon. "And you yourself are just overflowing with life?"  
"I'm just another result of the bloodbind."

"Will, I love you. You know that. You haven't forgotten I love you," Cardia said.  
Of course he hadn't forgotten that. "But you did forget that death isn't always the end," she said.   
"Sometimes it's only the beginning," the change in her voice indicated that this was Buffy speaking, not Cardia.   
"Of more death," Spike said sarcastically.

Buffy, Cardia, or whatever it was faded away, as did the room, leaving him a view of the constellations of the zodiac. One by one, the stars of nine constellations faded out, leaving only Scorpio, Capricorn and Aquarius.

Both Capricorn and Aquarius materialized, one into Buffy as a centaur, the other into Cardia as the water-carrier. "Death leads to a new beginning", the two said. They turned around and walked away. In his zenith every star of Scorpio turned dark, accept for Antares. Instead, it grew in size and magnitude. It was getting closer.

Antares stopped moving, and morphed into a scorpion. Orion came tearing through the heavens chasing it, but never gained on Antares. He was watching the eternal chase, with the slight difference that Orion was female now.  
Spike rolled his eyes, and nearly missed the scorpion stinging another star, which turned into a woman. She started to cried black tears, and when they rolled off her face, the skies returned to normal.

Spike saw another flash of white light and then nothing. He opened his eyes. Ilsa Sinistra's face was hovering above him, and he realized he was lying on the floor. "You got a fag?"  
Ilsa wordlessly handed him a cigarette. When Spike had taken a few drags and was standing again, Ilsa asked if he was all right.   
"I'm fine, it was nothing," he muttered, and added mentally, 'although I now seem to be hallucinating'.  
~~~

Dawn slammed the door shut with a typical 'Honey, I'm home' gesture, but there was no one there to see it. Dawn shrugged and walked to her bedroom. Anya and Xander were standing in there. Anya was holding the top she'd… 'forgot to pay for in your 'hurry' to tell Buffy of the case of the bad demon last Friday', her mind supplied eagerly.  
"How much more is there?" Anya demanded furious.

Dawn knew she was busted, and sat down on the bed. Of all the people who could've found out, it had to have been the shopkeeper. "My new coat; those earrings you liked so much; three pairs of jeans," Dawn looked at Xander and Anya, who were waiting for the rest.   
"That was just last week."

"_What?_" Anya asked coldly, barely holding her temper in check.   
"That was what I … you-know-ed … last week," Dawn said guiltily.   
"How long have you been doing this?"  
"Since May…" Dawn was picking at the loose threads where the Iron Maiden patch had been until last Saturday.

"The magical month May," Anya said sarcastically, "Xander, honey, do you think we missed our dose of misbehavior? I hear it was dealt out in May."  
Xander put his arms around Anya to calm her down. "I said I was sorry," Dawn said annoyed.   
"No, you didn't," Xander pointed out.

"Then I'm saying it now," Dawn said.   
"We're going to have a little talk with your mom about this," Xander said.  
Dawn watched them leave. When they were gone, she took out everything she'd stolen, and laid it all out on the table. She put Anya's books back in their respective crates and sat on her bed.

She put a Britney Spears picture up on her dartboard, and started throwing her darts at it. This wasn't how she had expected her holidays to begin.  
~~~

Dawn threw another dart at Riley Finn. Every single dart she owned was already lodged onto some part of his face, and she liked the look of it. So, she grabbed the nearest sharp thing. One of Xander's screwdrivers. If she could just slam one of those through his face for real.  
Dawn held the screwdriver like Buffy held her knives and threw. It landed an inch over his eyes, smack in the middle of his forehead.  
Dawn grinned like a madwoman and answered the ringing phone. "Hey, Spike."  
"What are you doing?" he asked suspiciously – when Dawn was cheerful, she was doing something awfully awful.

"Puncturing Riley on my dartboard," Dawn said brightly.   
"Hmm… Anything happened lately?"

It was quiet on the Sunnydalean side for half a minute.

"Buffy and Willow killed a Belcla," Dawn said.   
"_What_ _else?_" Spike asked, voice clear and clearly emphasizing both words. He knew there was something she wasn't telling him, but it didn't take a genius to know that.   
"I passed a bunch of tests."  
"Little Bit, I'm getting tired of this game."

"Anya's Ravenclaw's little sister."  
"Stop beating on another bush entirely and tell me whatever it is you're not telling me now."  
In a last attempt not to have to answer, Dawn feigned not understanding the question.

"You know bloody well what I'm talking about and you're going to tell me right now," Spike suddenly thundered.   
"I've been shoplifting for the past two months. Anya found a top a stole," Dawn admitted softly.

"What?" Spike asked, his voice immediately softening and concern fighting its way into the single word.   
"I've been stealing for the past two months… "

"Dawn … why?" it was all concern, now.   
"I don't know," she said through gritted teeth, "why are Buffy and me at each other's throats?"

Spike sighed loudly. "Haven't a clue, Bit," he said. "Has the world ended yet?"  
Dawn said it hadn't, if it had, surely he would have known.

"Has the Hellmouth been opened?"  
Again, the answer was 'no'.

"Is the Soldier Boy dead?"  
Dawn said she didn't think he was worth going to prison for. Spike told her to sick a band of vampires on him, but Dawn reminded him of Riley's arsenal of grenades, stun batons and tasers.  
---

Buffy hugged Mister Pointy closer to herself and shivered. It was a surprisingly cold night, and it was raining. Buffy wished she'd brought along a coat, or at least an umbrella. No one in their right mind – not even evil ones in their right mind – would be out now.

Buffy saw someone lying by the side of the road and approached the form cautiously. From up close, she saw it was Riley. He was in terrible shape, looking like he'd been run over by a garbage truck. He smelt that way, too.  
Buffy averted her eyes and walked on. She wasn't in the mood for him, and he looked the way she had felt when she discovered he was with another. He deserved this.  
~~~

Riley fumed and raged, tearing through her room. He'd already thrown both Mister Gordo and Mister Pointy out of the window, and was holding up a picture out of it. "It's on the picture. It wasn't supposed to be. Did you let it?"  
Buffy stared at the floor and willed it to open up and swallow Riley. If possible, could it leave the photograph?  
"Spike is not an 'it'. Athens isn't either, is she?"  
"Shut up. Her name is Athena, not Athens."

Buffy looked up angrily. "You don't get to talk to me that way," she snapped angrily.   
"Why not?"  
"I'm your girlfriend, you bastard," she yelled.

"Didn't seem to bother you when I was lying on the streets last night. I saw you smirk and walk away."  
"You have no right to talk to me like that. You come in here, spouting off the superiority of the human race – more specifically the male half of it – and start telling me what you think is true, when it isn't. I'm more experienced with this."  
"Leaving your loved ones half alive in the gutter?"

"Vampires," Buffy said, trying to hold back her tears.   
"Animals."

"Your girl too? If I pushed Harmony into your arms, would you stake her?"  
Riley hesitated. His eventual answer was of the 'yes, but' variety. 

"Because she has a pretty face? Because she's still so …" Buffy couldn't believe she was going to say something other than naïve about Harmony Kendall, "still so innocent?"  
"I …"  
"Do you dream about going to her – Spike's crypt – in the middle of the night with all your fancy weapons and taking her?" she asked ruthlessly.  
Riley had the decency to look disgusted. Buffy felt sick; to her, vampire Harmony was the same Harmony she'd seen the first day in Sunnydale, fourteen years old, the same Harmony at eleven in a picture at Cordelia's house. Still a little girl, who hadn't grown up and was quickly losing her chances to.

She didn't believe she was thinking this about Harmony, the same girl who she made fun of with Xander and Willow at night, because of her childish behavior. But last Friday, while she was being debriefed about the potion to kill a demon she'd neglected to tell Anya about, she'd seen something in her; a flash of something more than a whiny, insufferable, childlike brat. A flash, nothing more than a fraction of a second, but it had been there.

Riley sat down next to her and put an arm around her shoulders. "Shss," he tried to soothe her.   
"Don't touch me," she screeched and flew to the other side of the room.  
I wish Spike were here to give him a verbal taste of his own medicine, she thought sadly. A tear rolled over her cheek, and Buffy looked away, determined not to let him see.

"Get out," Buffy whispered harshly.   
"Get out of my house, now."  
Why couldn't she just end things between them?  
~~~

Dawn proudly held the document in front of the camera. 'Doctissimi SHS Praeceptores Dawn A. Summers, classis decimae discipulam, propter laudabiles eius in disciplinis liberalibus progressus in classem superiorem traducere decreverunt. Sunnydali XIIIX VII MM.'  
"I passed," she grinned.

Joyce and Sam stood behind the camera, silently discussing something. "I think that's best, you?"  
"Always in support of Grame," Sam grinned, "really, it's the best idea to keep her here. She won't get into New Moon Bay without that extra year of schooling, and let's face it; it's too late for other schools."  
"There should be exceptions for people like her," Joyce muttered, looking at her daughter. "Either of getting into New Moon Bay early, or spending a year at Salem's."  
Sam folded her arms. "Why don't you teach them to control their powers?"  
"Because I can't stand to think what they might do. Buffy is turning twenty in January… when she Dreems, she'll know. If Dawn is curious enough, she'll learn to on her own."  
~~~

There was a knock on the door. Spike looked up from his laptop – which was surrounded by tools – and muttered 'come in'. Dumbledore stood in the doorway. "I just came to ask if you remembered to make the list of books students need for the next year. Minerva wants it in tomorrow."

Spike said he'd get to it. McGonagall was not a person he felt comfortable around. She was far too strict. Snape he just couldn't stand – it was that inexplicable feeling of dislike he also felt with Angel and Harris, and _between_ Angel and Harris.  
As for Dumbledore, Spike knew him to be at least two-hundred years of age. Spike had a deep respect for the Headmaster, but also half-suspected him of owning a Philosopher's Stone. Wizards hardly ever aged past two-hundred and were still as vital as Dumbledore still was – it was simply impossible because for whatever powers they possessed, they had human bodies. When they _did and were still as vital as Dumbledore still was … then there was either demon or magical sentient blood running in the family. Such was not the case with Dumbledore. The old wizard had another trick up his sleeve somewhere._

Spike shrugged and teleported himself to Manchester. Apparating on Hogwarts' grounds may be impossible; such rules weren't applicable to those of magical sentient blood. He'd teleported directly to the Wizarding Library, another place where Apparating had been made impossible. Teleporting was such a delicious way to get around that. He could have just flown in, he could have taken the Knight Bus, he could have taken the train, and he could have Apparated to Manchester and walked. But he'd just had to teleport, breaking rules was much more fun than obeying them.

Spike sat down at a table, and started thinking. He knew things would be easier for both students and teachers if every subject was taught according to set standards, but that could not expected at a school like Hogwarts. But he _could _– for his years at least – build a structured education, each year divided in trimesters, each with a theme.

As the most basic fundament of a magical child's education, magic should have a part. Defence was undefined enough to do this. Magic, then. Should he include the magic of demons and magical sentients? Probably; their magic after all came from the Elverin.  
_'Magic magical sentients - Elverin, Atlanteani, Maresear  
- Veela   
demons - Toth  
- several other kinds – no need to elaborate, they can read  
humans - Romani – include guilt-curse [am not holding grudges or being childish]  
- Wiccan – include most basic things about Earth Magic, the specific laws of it  
- Wizarding – i. e. the theories behind it  
- Will magic'_

Spike looked over the list and crossed out the part about holding grudges. He was nearly a century and a half old and he was acting like a twelve-year-old.   
He read it again. Covering theory wasn't enough; he should teach them something about specific spell groups. Specific spell groups, and the human families who possessed some high-level powers akin to magical sentient or in some cases to demon powers. The Chase family with their Katzen-like powers; the Keepers of Magic, who could use Thought Magic; and there was of course no getting around the old Council families, who still possessed some of the powers their magical sentient ancestors had from long before the vampire race – or the Council of Watchers – came into being.

Vampires, of course, followed by the Slayers, and the Council of Watchers. Spike had a feeling he was going to be saying those words a lot more times, than he would like the coming year.   
He smirked, remembering the time he had broken into the archives of the Council. He'd gone straight to the rolls of film that held their prized knowledge – the Council used the technology of the old, pure as the official word was, demons and magical sentients, the endless miles of books were to fool those who weren't familiar with the Council's true roots. Only the Third Organ knew the Council's history.

Twenty-one topics to cover; so little time to come up with them. Well he had two, so that left nineteen more to go. No, eighteen, he would cover basic magical theory in a semester in the fourth year, and then follow that up in fifth year with extended information.

First years would cover muggle weapons, technology, and in the last trimester he would conclude how that and magic worked together to form a bigger picture.  
Second years …

Hours later, Spike took his list and started selecting books. Maybe he could go out in the city after he got this done. Too bad there was no football for at least another month.  
~~~

At the staff table at Hogwarts later that night, Spike was unfortunate enough to sit in between professors McGonagall and Snape. While on one side, Snape was giving him suspicious looks; McGonagall was reprimanding both of them to act their ages. Spike, who was used to ignoring those who liked to show off their authority, paid her no attention. Snape was pointedly ignoring her, as well. "Don't ever think that I will trust you, Montgomery." Snape's intonation was clear enough.  
"I'm not asking for your trust," Spike said slowly, in a low voice.  
"Albus and Minerva fail to see that they need someone they can trust to teach here," Snape hissed back.

They were talking softly enough not to be heard by anyone, but anyone deaf, blind, and comatose across the Great Hall could feel the waves of hostility radiating from the two professors. Spike calmly examined his chipping nail polish, and looked at Professor Severus Snape. "You seem to believe there is only a select group that can be trusted. What kind of group, I wonder." Spike indeed wanted to know which group, and he was tempted to bring up the Council, for some strange reason. 'Some insane fascination, no doubt,' he told himself.  
"Rather than that, I believe there is a large group of individuals who cannot be trusted," Snape said tonelessly, black eyes hard.

Spike's own blue eyes widened. Individuals, Snape had said. Any ordinary person would have used persons or people; and although assuming that Snape referred to 'individuals' because of some relation to the Council was unlikely, it wasn't unthinkable. "There are far more who can be," Spike finished somewhat lamely, and went back to his food.  
He was annoyed at the lack of fun he had in arguing with the Potions Master. With Angel, it was the knowledge of what lay underneath everything Angel pretended to be; he knew what Angel _was_ and that he could bring it out. Their fundamental differences and their underlying similarity made it a pleasure to get under his skin. With Harris, it was something like that, coupled with something he somehow liked to describe as playfulness. Snape just irritated him a lot.  
***

I'm very sorry for all the changes in point of view, but it's not a character centric story. That's just not possible to do, not with three locations to keep track of. But I do have a few characters whose point of view you'll see often.  
_For Sunnydale_: usually Buffy or Dawn.  
_For LA:_ usually Angel or Cordelia.  
_For Hogwarts:_ mostly Spike, Draco, Hermione or Ginny.

A thank-you to the following reviewers:  
_jr__: Dawn's coming to Hogwarts for Christmas, and at the end of term Spike will return to Sunnydale briefly.  
_DracoDew17__:_ Many thanks!  
_blackflame28___: I couldn't give it up even if I'd want to (and I've tried, right after I finished OotP)  
_ash:_ At Hogwarts, it's either Spike's, Draco's, Hermione's or Ginny's point of view. It's rarely Harry or Ron.  
_RR Spike:_ We-eel…  
_samson___: I'm flattered you think it's interesting  
_voidhawk__:_ Hiya, nice to see some people still want to read it. Indecisive, ain't I? Someone convinced me to put it back up ASAP; *cough*account blocked*cough*. Hey, Spike didn't take it in the last story, did he? *Pouts* last time I had 101 reviews … sigh. Oh, well; not writing for the reviews, am I?_


	4. Park's Way Center

Destined for Good  
part one: Bridges between the World  
chapter three: Park's Way Center

**_=Sunnydale: _****_1630 Revello Drive_****_ August twenty-second=_**

At the exact same time the digits on her clock changed from 23:59 to 00:00, Dawn put her pen down on the first page of a new diary. It was a tradition for her to begin a new diary the first minute of her birthday, and the days before her birthdays she wrote even more than she usually did, so she wouldn't have to waste any paper.

At four in the morning, Dawn was still writing (and if Buffy were there, the blonde would have commented on Dawn's amazing writing speeds. As it were, Buffy Summers was asleep in the room next to Dawn's with Mister Gordo pressed against her chest and Mister Pointy balancing on its pointy end and making a hole in the floor, on the place where in her dream one Riley Finn was lying helplessly on the ground as a stake was twisted into his heart).

Every fifteen minutes or so, Dawn's eyes flicked to her clock to see if it was ten o'clock yet. Every fifteen minutes or so, the clock showed Dawn that in these cases, insomnia didn't pay.  
~~~

When Dawn came downstairs, she was greeted by a chorus of 'Happy Birthday's, and couldn't help a smile. "Sit down, Birthday girl," Kris ordered.  
Well, it was certainly nice of Kris to come over from Los Angeles. Dawn noticed that Kris had once again changed styles, and now wore her hair short and entirely blue. She had been expecting a change, of course, Kris keeping one look for longer than two weeks was in, and of itself a small miracle, but keeping it for longer than two months would be an unprecedented event. The boy standing next to her must be her boyfriend, then. Although he did look a little like Kris did (provided one knew that Kris' natural hair color was dark blonde, as well), so perhaps he was a relative, instead. "C'mon Aury, sit down," Kris said again.  
This time Dawn obeyed, sitting down with a smile that said 'gimme my pressies'. Of course, that could have been Dawn herself, and not her smile. Smiles, after all, have no vocal cords.

When no presents came her way in the next minute, Dawn frowned. They were going to sing, and even though Angel and Cordelia were in Los Angeles at the time, that still left Xander and Buffy, who were certainly not in LA. "Don't you sing!" she exclaimed mock outraged.  
"Aury, we have to. What kind of party would it be if we didn't sing?" Kris said brightly. To someone who was as tone-deaf as Kris was, the singing abilities of Buffy and Xander didn't matter.  
A party where no one lost the ability to hear, Dawn thought, grinning mentally.

"On the table, little Miss Summers," Xander said.  
Dawn climbed on the table and waited. "Happy birthday to you, happy …"

Just hurry up with the song, Dawn thought, I want my presents. "… happy birthday to yooou!"

"Not another song," Dawn grinned, getting off the table, "but presents, and lots of them."

Tara and Willow gave her a lot of book-shaped parcels, which they set down on the armrests. Dawn grabbed one, tore off the paper and jumped up to hug the two Wiccans. "Thanks, guys!"  
The other books were also about Wicca, and after six more hugs, Tara produced another present from a pocket in her skirt. Dawn opened the box. It was a silver snake, whose head was a swirling mist. "It's a mood ring. One that actually works," Tara smiled.  
Dawn slipped it on her finger and thanked the Wiccans again. "How does it work?"  
"Tara found a spell to reflect moods on gems. We'd already bought the ring, so we did the spell on the snake's head. The spell itself is in one of those books," Willow explained.  
The redhead took a book and opened it, then put it in Dawn's hands. "That's the spell we used," she said, holding her index finger in the middle of the page.

Anya and Xander hadn't wrapped their gifts; Dawn already knew what they were because she'd picked them out herself. One was the statue of Ceres that she'd been waiting to get for a few months; two books about ancient religion, one about the Olympic Gods and one about the Germanic ones; and a chain with a tusk from a Fotemon on it. "You could have at least wrapped them," she said, mock offended.  
Xander shrugged.

Dawn looked at her sister. The blonde was sitting on the floor next to Kris, looking bored. She kept looking at Riley furiously, as if she wished that he'd be pierced by a dozen hot pokers. Dawn had no problem with that idea – she'd be honored to do it herself – so long as Buffy would act normal to her again. Well, actually Dawn would be happy to do it in any case.  
Buffy got up and walked to Dawn. Dawn took the box her older sister was holding, and opened it. She smiled at the two roses. Not a birthday present but a peace offering then, huh? Dawn reached into the box and pulled out another box, which she turned over in her hands. She smiled up and her sister, "All's forgiven and all that, but I'm not reading it out loud."  
"That's okay."  
Dawn opened the little box and pulled out a silver chain from which hung a small wooden stake. "Thanks. Buff."  
She unhooked the chain and put it around her neck.

Kris threw a pouch at her. Dawn grabbed it out of midair, still admiring the stake. The contents of the pouch chinked and when she opened it, her mouth fell open. "That's at least a hundred Galleons," Dawn muttered shocked.  
Kris and her the guy beside nodded. "Wow, thanks..."  
"We plan to take all of you shopping sometime today," he explained.

Joyce looked at the two on the floor. "You're going to…?"  
"We're taking 'em shopping," he replied blankly.  
"Eh, Christian, you might want to hear what she has to say," Kris said, with a hint of nervousness in her voice.  
"Where to? The pouch of Galleons doesn't exactly imply you're taking them to the mall in Sunnydale."  
"We were gonna … to LA, the Park's Way Center …" Christian sputtered, completely confused – hadn't Kris said that Joyce was a witch also?  
Kris blushed lightly, "Eh… yeah, Aunty Joyce, this is Christian Anderson. I've been with him for the past three years. It kind slipped my mind to introduce him," she said, grinning. 

Joyce smiled and nodded. "Pleased to meet you, Christian, I'm Joyce Summers, Kris' role model," Joyce said this with pride.  
"It's true," Kris protested, "I wanted to become an Enforcer because she was!"  
Joyce waved it away lightly, "I do hope you two were planning to stow them all into Kris' purple monstrosity — I mean Kris' van. There is no way I am allowing Dawn to get within six feet of a broom. Imagine the damage she could do."  
The look on Dawn's face made it crystal clear that she was, in fact, imagining the damage she could do with a racing broom. "And I could drop a bomb on Anne's house …" Dawn opened her eyes and blushed, "you didn't hear that," she grumbled irritably.

Something was tapping against the window, demanding from them to open it and to let it in. With a sigh and a flick of her wand, Joyce opened the window. The owl flew in and landed in front of Dawn, who took the parcel off its leg and opened it. "It's from Spike!" she exclaimed happily.  
"Read it out loud," Willow demanded.  
Dawn was very sure she just heard Xander mutter that Willow just wanted to hear from someone who could match her IQ.

"Listen up, then. 'Dear Dawn (thought you'd be getting a little old for 'Bit', 'Bitesize', etc – you are taller than your sister, after all)," at this comment, Buffy muttered something under her breath that earned her a sharp look from her mother.  
I'd like to wish you not only a happy, but also a very … boring … birthday. You never know with Sunnyhell. The gift I got from a Muggle jeweller, but I went to see a wizard expert. He ensured me there was nothing funny about it. Mind, he was not an expert on Wiccan magic, so you might want to have Red take a look at it first. Take care of yourselves, all of you. Spike'. Sorry, Will, guess there's not too much techno babble or that stuff only you understand."  
Buffy looked at her. "Are you saying you're not intelligent? Than what am I, what's Xander? Are we _trolls_?"  
Dawn frowned. "Was I saying I was not intelligent?" she said, offended.  
Xander shrugged, and so did Buffy. "Forget it," Dawn said eventually, "you can make it up to me by giving me many more things because I'm the birthday girl."

Dawn pulled out a small glass orb, perhaps half an inch in diameter. The deep blue of the orb strongly reminded Dawn of Spike's eyes. When she looked into it, it started showing pink and green flecks. She blinked and looked at the little orb again. It hung from its soft leather cords, and there were definitely colored flecks in it. "Willow, you really might want to take a look at this," Dawn said, holding out the orb to the redhead. Buffy, in the mean time, dug out a cell phone and dialed Spike's number.

"Yeah?" Spike sounded very, very bored.  
"Your present glowed."  
"What?"  
"_It glowed _– no, wait. It stopped, but Willow's holding it now. What? Oh." Buffy turned to the redhead, "Will, give it back to Dawn for a second."

Willow did, and immediately it started to show the flecks of light again. "Now it's glowing again."  
"I've no idea, Slayer. You'll have to figure it out yourselves. But it's probably just because it's Dawn's now."  
"You're not too concerned, are you? Do you have better things to do?"  
Spike sighed. "No and no. This happens often enough, I'd say that it has probably just recognized its owner. I wouldn't worry about if it doesn't sting, makes her feel lightheaded?"

Buffy asked her sister. "In both cases the answer is 'no'. Dawn says it feels like she's holding a tiny sphere."  
"It's probably nothing, then."  
"But this is – Spike? It's impolite to hang up in the middle of a conversation, ass!" Buffy said, offended.

"Well, are we off to Los Angeles, then?" Christian asked, getting off the floor.  
Joyce looked thoughtful. To what degree was the International Statute of Secrecy broken in this case? It wasn't, she thought. All these people had a right to know. "You can go. Buffy, Dawn neither of you are to go within six feet of a broom." 

"And _don't_ raid the shops!" Joyce added as an afterthought when both her daughters were out the door.  
There was an assorted murmur of agreements and critical retorts as everyone got into Kris' van. Anya and Christian were immersed in a discussion about brooms – Anya failed to see the use, as she dated from before traveling by broom. "But why use one when you can just Apparate?"

"Apparating is far more difficult than getting on a broom. And they really are useful for all sorts of sports," Christian explained eagerly.  
"Don't listen to the Quidditch freak," Kris threw over her shoulder. "He thinks brooms are the best thing ever invented by wizardkind."  
Christian shot her a look. "Pardon me? I may be a professional Quidditch commentator, Miss Raco; and you might be too clumsy to ever make it on a Quidditch team, but I would like to point out to you that you're just as obsessed as I am!"

"I am not clumsy!" Kris shrieked, turning to face Christian so suddenly she turned the wheel all the way to the right. With another shriek, she steered the car back on the road.  
Christian gave a satisfied smirk. "Aren't you now?"  
"No, I'm not! And don't you dare say I'm as obsessed with that idiotic sport as you are!"  
"I'll dare that, and then some, Raco. You're obsessed not only with Quidditch, changing styles like you were a Metamorphmagus, like that equally insane and obsessed friend of yours, and weapons, but also with Muggles. You've been driving a car since you sixteen, for God's sakes!"  
"Is that so?" countered Kris hotly. "Are you saying that it's wrong for a witch to know about the Muggle world?"  
Christian smiled triumphantly, and said, "You certainly do know a ridiculous much about them, for a witch."  
"So you're saying that to know certain things about Muggles is ridiculous. Are you saying that Muggleborns are ridiculous?"  
Christian's triumphant smile turned into a full-fledged triumphant smirk, and he said in a tone that clearly stated he'd already won the argument, "So, you're implying that you are Muggleborn, because you know so much about Muggles. Now _that, is was I would call ridiculous."  
Kris didn't reply immediately, and stared ahead, silently fuming. Had she been a cartoon character, there would be a thunderstorm hanging over her head._

"What about Portkeys, they are still in use, aren't they?" Anya interjected, before Kris could counter again.   
"They aren't as widely used," Christian said, switching from argumentative to explanatory in a second flat (if one wanted to be a successful commentator for the station that employed him, this was a quality you couldn't miss), "because it's very easy to enter houses with an illegally active Portkey."  
Anya also listed several location potions, and then (after Christian had commented that they weren't taught at school anymore) muttered something about disuse of the subject of potions in magical education these days. A good deal of the way, Anya described the preparations for the 'simplest' one over the sound of the radio.  
After no less than an hour of hearing his girlfriend rambling on about ingredients and actions he'd never even heard of before, Xander took action. "Ahn! None of us even understand you, honey, would you please…?" he asked over his shoulder.  
Anya complied, but not without any further comment.   
~~~

Park's Way Center turned out to be a city within a city. It was well organized: the entire area was surrounded by a park (hence, the name, Buffy figured), with houses and shops built in rings within the park. Buffy felt this more as a home than Sunnydale or her old house here in LA (which, she thought bitterly, was less than half a block away from the entrance to Park's Way Center), and her irritation flared again. For nineteen years, her mother, her father, Giles and Angel had lied to her. The knowledge that her heritage, her birthright of magic was something none other than Spike had shown her was _not_ making it any easier.

Buffy knew that her parents must have had their reasons, even if she did not understand them or even thought she would agree with them. Her mother hadn't known about her duties as the Slayer although, Buffy now remembered, she had brushed the myth of the _Slayer_ off as nothing more than well, myth. Her mother hadn't exactly denied the existence of vampires. However, Giles and Angel may well have put her life in danger by not telling her about the Wizarding world. Had anyone she'd fought had a wand, it would take nothing more than six syllables to kill her, quite cleanly. On that thought, she could not think why Spike hadn't done that, but he was always one for a fight. The Killing Curse wouldn't have been satisfactory for him, and she was lucky that Angelus had never directly planned to kill her. 

Park's Way Center was, for her, a fascinating place. In the time between finding out about this other world that existed next to her own and today, she had been going through books on the subject, like her little sister. Like Dawn also, she had tried talking to her mother about the Wizarding world. _Un_like Dawn, Joyce had talked to her about it. Joyce said that it was not possible to lose the gift of magic and that, at least until Joyce had gotten pregnant with Dawn, she had been showing many signs of magic. After Dawn was born, she showed less and less signs, and in the year she turned fifteen (and was supposed to have started at New Moon Bay), she had stopped doing so completely. Then, without any explanation, according to Joyce, there had been signs again, in early August of this year without any explanation. Her mother had even mentioned going to see a wandmaker or taking Buffy to Salem's Institutes for tests.   
It was strange, to say the least.  
---

Dawn, unlike her sister, was not thinking about tests or lies. Dawn's mind was on the nine hundred dollars worth of Galleons in her pocket, and on what she could do with all that money. As she passed wandstores ("Dawn Aurora Summers, you know that you're not allowed a wand for another year."), broom-dealers ("Your mother specifically said not to let either of you _within six feet of a broom._"), an ice-cream parlor ("Are you insane? We buy our ice cream on the other side of the street. It's three Sickles a scoop here."), and a Menagerie ("And who's going to take care of a pet? Your mother doesn't let animals into the house."), she decided she liked Kris a lot better when she wasn't acting all responsible and grown up.

An hour later, Dawn's mood had brightened considerably. Of the one-hundred and twenty-five Galleons Kris and Christian had given her, she had forty-four left. The rest she'd spent on two pairs of dragon leather boots. The boots made her sister nearly green with jealousy, and Buffy had dragged Willow with her to Gringotts, to change the Muggle money Buffy had with her. The rest of them were sitting at the ice cream parlor that didn't charge outrageous prices, waiting for Buffy and Willow to return.

That is to say, they got ice cream and _then_ waited for Buffy and Willow to return. All of them (not Christian, Anya and Tara so much) had known Buffy for too long to sit at a table twirling their thumbs and discussing the weather when she was shopping, while simply waiting for her to return. But it was fine. Dawn was far too grateful for being back on civil turns with her sister to comment on her shopping habits. And then, there was that saying, the pot calling the kettle black. Although, in the tradition of adapting the saying to the topic, it should be 'one Summers calling the other a shop-a-holic'.

Dawn grinned broadly and went back to her ice cream. She hadn't felt this well since before May. All in all, her fourteenth birthday could turn out to be the best one yet. Although, following Sunnydale's 'Anti-good birthdays' policy's, something annoyingly weird (Dawn only liked weird, inexplicable things when they were caused by her, and so were weird and inexplicable to others) was likely to happen soon.  
And while during the summer evil seemed to be on holiday, too, and her birthdays were far less dangerous than, say, Buffy's, she'd had her fair share of odd things happening. Or maybe her odd, and annoyingly weird thing had already happened, because Muggle orbs that glowed were certainly out of the ordinary. And about that so-called Muggle piece of jewelry… Spike had known that he'd be sending it to her as a birthday present, the least he could have done was ask the jeweler is there was any kind of myth surrounding it, just to be on the safe side?

Then again, maybe they were all just a tad paranoid, and it had just been a trick of the light. Dawn grinned at the thought of a trick of the light making the _blue pendant glow _green _and _pink_, only when she was holding it. The idea alone was ridiculous, but it would fool the average Sunnydalean easily. They were all suckers for 'rational' explanations, including most of her teachers. She sniggered at the thought, even if she highly doubted that Sam would fall for it.   
***_


End file.
